Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity Home for the Dying and Destitute... It was when I had elderly women on both sides of me, holding and kissing my hands, three young children on my lap, caressing my arms saying, "kite!" there speech kissed with the sweetness of there own language. Ahead of me was a developmentally disabled young woman singing the same five lines of a song over and over with a beautiful stiff dance somewhat resembling a wooden soldier. I was kissed a thousand times that day, by lips that have seen far more days than mine. Kissing and singing was kindly interrupted by loads of freshly washed bucket laundry awaiting a place on the line to dry in the Indian sun. I gladly helped lift the heavy tin bucket from the deformed hands of the young woman carrying it. I worked along side a beautiful young woman, a resident here, possibly dying tomorrow, but that day, she was alive and working with me. We rang out countless amounts of fabric, drenching my hot feet with cool water. I began to understand the signs made to me to communicate one thought or another, I began to become a part of the community. It was as if culture, ethnicity, age, colour, and language held no power. The fact that they were dying didn't matter, for I was dying too. And in those treasured moments, we were all alive. Mine seemed to be so much brighter that day. Brighter than it has been for a long while. I "drip fed" a woman glucose and water. She was having test done to define the problem, but she looked as if she was wasting due to either AIDS, or some sort of cancer. Her tiny shell of a body was wrapped in a blanket, revealing only her shaved head, butchered. Her cheek bones were high, her eyes sunken, her teeth seemingly too big for her shrunken mouth. Each swallow she took was a chore, and I struggled to grasp the world she must be living in. Even though we were sharing the same moment, I understood that I would never be able to grasp her thoughts. As we left that day I began to weep. Not tears of sorrow so much as tears of life. I was overwhelmed by the gift of life, the gift of love, the gift of the old, and the new. The gift of the tired, and the gift of the dying.



The rest of the week I remained at home. I was sick. Nothing to be compared to the saints I visited on Monday, mind you, but enough to wipe me out of the week's schedule. So alas, no babies delivered... But maybe more importantly, I felt that God really spoke to me in my weakness this week. Even through watching "Marry Poppins". I have eight weeks remaining in India. I am excited to see all that can happen in eight weeks. They will not be wasted. Not when the goal is love. My goal is love. It has to be, with out it, I'm just dying. With it, I am alive.


We had some fun this week practicing suturing. Lisa turned thirty this week, we celebrated at a beautiful cafe together. Here are some pictures documenting my beautiful family here. I can hardly believe I only have eight more weeks of there company. That's enough to break my
heart...