An unfortunate start to the New Year...

Happy New Year 2009! I´m still having a hard time believing that it´s already 2009, where have all these years gone? Now, here I am living my life in Nicaragua -- crazy! Life is like a neverending dream sometimes that in retrospect seems so cloudy you wonder if parts of it ever occured. At times it´s like one of those dreams that you never want to end, but recently for me lifes had a very surreal, more tragic feel to it. Upon arriving to my site after a wonderful New Years at the beach with my closest volunteer friends, my service took a little dip in the road. January 4th I spent an entire afternoon with a dying 27 year old mother of two, those two children have become great friends of mine since beginning service. They are only 8 and 10 years old. Their mother has been slowly dying of an infection caused by an operation she received to remove a tumor from her knee. After spending the past couple of months in the Nicaraguan hospital (somewhere I hope to never be admitted), she was released for the fact that nothing more could be done to improve her condition. As I sat with the family and closest friends of this young mother, I couldn´t help but notice her knee -- which was swollen to the size of a watermellon. I wondered how much pain she was in and if she realized how much her two young children were going to miss her. I quietly watched as her family tended to her every need; moving her from a rocking chair, to a bed in the middle of the patio -- helping her sit up to watch the cars and motorcycles pass by, only to help her lay down two mintues later. She was gasping for breath, but could speak. Everyone was well aware of why we were all sitting around this woman -- it was unfair and undeniably ovious that there was nothing we could do but pray. However aware we all were of the inevitable, when she took her last breath at 8:28 p.m., not a single person in the house could hold back the tears -- myself included. I had never met this woman, but seeing the care and compassion on behalf of her friends and family and always keeping in mind her two kids, it was impossible to have a dry eye. The acceptance of death here in this culture feels somewhat different to me, eventhough I suspect it is the same to a certain degree in every nation. There was only immediate mourning for about a half an hour. But with the somberness of the moment, her family began dressing her for the wake. Her fingernails were painted, hair combed and set with rinestone clips, and she was covered in a lily-scented perfume. Her children were not present when she died, nor did they attend the wake which lasted until 4 in the morning. When a person dies in Nicaragua, their family and friends remain all night keeping them company until the morning. It´s something very beautiful and nostalgic about the communities silence in the middle of the night surrounding the death of their loved one.

The following day was very quite and tranquil, with very little activity. Most of the community were in their homes tending to their daily activities, but keeping close to their family members. Your really never realize what you have until you have lost it. That phrase will forever hold true. The funeral was held in the late afternoon, in the house where she died. It´s suprising to see peoples different reactions to death here, some people were laughing and smiling, while others were sobbing and wailing. At the final resting place, we all watched as she was placed in the grave. It was the most difficult for me seeing her father throw the first handful of dirt over her coffin. I can´t even imagine what it must feel like to burry a child. The whole crowd stayed and watched as the gravediggers pilled shovel after shovel of dirt on the coffin. It ended very peacefully with her two children laying yellow and white flowers on top of the mound. I will definitley be praying for all my loved ones back home and am surely counting my blessings that they are all healthy and safe!