Guest Post from Stella as part of the The Exponent and Doves and Serpents swap.
Hello, I’m Stella. I write over at Exponent. When I found out we were doing a swap, I quickly sought after a Wayfarer post as I have traveled near and far around this small world of ours. In all my travels across the globe, there have been a few people, big and small, who have changed my life. I’m not sure how yet. I think they have helped me feel deeply about what it means to be alive; I think they have made me question true value and meaning in existence; I think, well, I know, that they have somehow connected with me in ways that are the most human of humanity. This is a story about one of those people. There’s no happy ending, just a shared moment. Something human.
When I was 27 I met my first orphan. She lived in Brazil. She was in a bare room with dank yellow walls. She was in a yellow crib. She had a yellow t-shirt. She had a yellow cloth diaper. She ate yellow milk. She only had yellow.
I never thought that yellow could look sad, but sad it was. The yellow was sobbing quietly because it was conserving its energy…and, well, it had learned long ago that no one listened if it cried out loud, so it cried quietly.
I was ushered into this clean and yellow orphanage by nuns dressed like Mother Teresa. White robes with two blue lines around the edging. They had, in fact, been trained by Mother Teresa. This orphanage was one of her legacies. It was one of the best run and cared for orphanages in the vast favela of Rio de Janeiro. My shoes, nice ones I had bought in New York City without thinking twice about them, echoed down the cement hallway. I followed the nun to the room with the babies.
That’s where I saw her. She was lying in her yellow crib, dressed in yellow and looking at me with more intensity than I thought possible for an eight month old baby. She was quiet. Her eyes latched onto my blond hair and I wondered if she’d ever seen that color before, then I smiled at myself, she LIVED in that color. I asked the nun if I could hold her.
The nun paused. She thought. I felt immediately awkward that the answer wasn’t a certain “yes.” She was hesitant. Why? I wondered why? It was the normal thing to do with babies, isn’t it? To want to hold and love and care for them? At least, for me, it’s always been like that. I simply adore bringing a child’s cheek and resting it on my chest…delicately putting one hand on the back of her head and the other cradles her body…our hearts touching. There’s nothing so fully comforting as that.
The nun, still, looked at me. I wondered at the pause. She wanted my money, I knew, and so she didn’t want to offend me. She gave me a tiny tin necklace with a patron saint on it when I entered to get God and myself on her side. And yet, she didn’t want me to hold the little yellow clad baby either.
It dawned on me.
It would make her job and the baby’s life more complicated. Generally, the babies weren’t held or cuddled very much. When babies get used to that, they want it; we all would want it. If the babies in the orphanage got used to that…then they would cry more, they’d be dissatisfied more…they would, in a sense, learn what love is and then learn to miss it when it was no longer there.
If I held the baby, she might love it for the hour I got to spend with her, but then what? What about the next month where no one paid attention to her like that? No one sang or rocked her or hugged her or put their heart to hers.
I looked at the nun, “Nevermind, ” I said as I made my decision. A hard decision because I desperately wanted to hug this little one. Instead, I leaned over her crib and rubbed her tummy and sang her a song all while making eye contact. I did this for an hour.
Then I never saw her again.
I felt pretty dang useless that day.
Powerful essay. Makes me angry that is it so complicated and expensive to adopt.
I couldn’t agree more.
This is so powerful, and the story embodies the helplessness that I so often feel when wondering what I can do…
Such a powerful image. It can be incredibly discouraging when your ideals and compassion bump up against reality. I’m glad you shared this with us. I think it is important to keep these stories with us, not in a guilt-inducing way, but sometimes knowing our limitations and feeling shitty is the best way to know that we can’t look away and we have to find a way to do what we can, such as staying with a baby in a hopeless place and singing to her.
“We can’t look away”… it is so hard to figure out what we CAN do to make a difference.
Love this, Stella.
I watched a documentary once (can’t remember the title now, will post it later when it comes to me) re: children who are adopted from orphanages who have attachment disorders. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen.
It’s amazing to contemplate the power of touch, physical contact–and what its lack might do to a person’s development.
Heather, was the orphanage in Romania or Bulgaria? That documentary haunts me. So, so sad.
Yes. Oh, man.
Makes me wonder how much of my own anxiety is involved when I “comfort” someone else. I would have wanted to pick up that baby to assuage my own guilt for having such a nice life and my own helplessness at not being able to make a meaningful impact. I’m impressed with your restraint and sad that we can’t do more.
A few years ago my wife signed up to go once a week to a temporary home for out-of-town/foster babies undergoing hospitalization in Atlanta. Her job was to hold and rock a baby for 30 minutes or so. The appointments were usually overbooked way in advance. She, like many of you, found it a complex experience. All her emotions sang, not in near ABBA-like unison, with the soft and fuzzy feeling of a pop song, but more akin to the simulatneous competing bass, baritone, tenor, countertenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano and soprano voices of a tempestuous opera.
Stella, this is heartbreaking, and I’m so glad you shared this story.
I feel like what I can do to make a difference is to be aware of this in the first place. So thank you to Stella for telling me about these babies in the yellow orphanage. And then I will look for opportunities to help where I can. Perhaps I will be able to visit one day, or give money to them, or simply to raise awareness of volunteering. And then I can continue to do the work that I do already, but with a more compassionate perspective. I can care for my children a little more tenderly, or when I volunteer I can think of how each of the youth I work with may have a similar void in their life.
I feel the same longing to “do something” about this, but since I am one with those babies, what I do in my sphere of influence here matters just as much as if I am able to go there or and do something in person. I am filled with love for those tiny bodies who aren’t getting enough snuggling and love. I hope they can feel it all the way from here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKNxeF4KMsY&feature=channel_video_title
Amazing song, Priscella.
This was so amazing Stella. Thank you for sharing such a raw and real story. Of course, it brings tears to my eyes to imagine a baby like my own void of the love that I am free to give. Love shouldn’t be a burden withheld. So sad.
Thank you for your comments everyone. I know life has these moments of pure, raw, helplessness–and if it spurs us on to do what we can, where we can, then I think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
Oh, Stella, what a heartbreaking experience! But what an excellent point. Like Mel said above, it makes me wonder if when I actually do try to help someone else, I’m only trying to make myself feel better about typically not doing anything. (I think there’s actually some discussion of altruism in the social psychology literature where this argument is made: We only help to make ourselves feel better.)
Thanks for posting this.