Remembering Haiti

So I saw a woman yesterday.  She was on the metro escalator.  I was in a rush, and I almost missed her in that dingy cement hole, the one that sends reverberating conversation up and down until it becomes indistinguishable from the rush of wind or the roar of the train.  I had to look down, to make sure my racing feet didn't stumble over the awkward metro escalators, or someone's bag, or more likely, my own shoes.  But I did a double take for her.

Her floral dress was simple - old lady-ish, if I may say.  It looked almost like it was taken right out of my grandmother's closet in the 60's.  A tad dirty.  Her hair, short, was greying.  She was carrying a large bag, one that seemed cumbersome and heavy, difficult to get onto the 'up' escalator.  Her body, beleaguered with age, moved at a pace that stands out in this city, and in a way that seemed stiff - as if her whole body were groaning for some rest, and perhaps some new cartilage in her joints, too.   But there was something else - her face.  Her face, it reminded me of someone.

And that was when it went from a double-take to a triple-take, to an awkward half-gaping stare across the metro escalators.  From only about halfway down the escalator, I watched her travel up on the other side until the end of my down escalator forced me off, and my attention forward.

She looked like Justine.  Justine from Haiti.  From a world and a half away, this woman could have been her twin sister - even moving and dressing like her.  And my worlds felt like they were colliding, and then crumbling.

I have done a terrible job of being a friend to Haiti.  From my comfortable bed, and my air-conditioned apartment, and my desk piled high with textbooks and essay outlines, forgetting became the simplest solution.  If I don't think about it, I don't have to pray for them.  I don't have to love them.  I don't have to be a steward of my time and experience, to talk about them or to think of them, or to send them encouragement.  I can just forget.

But the truth is, I can't and shouldn't forget, at least not completely, and the Lord uses moments like this to check me.  That place, those people - they own part of my heart and my soul.  Much as I may try to push those memories down, to separate that part of my experience from everyday life, I can't.  Moments like this come crashing down on me not just because I am realizing that I have forgotten - it's a minor identity crisis to realize how much something has affected you, and in ways you did not realize, and in ways you were ignoring.  I left part of my heart there, and I took part of theirs with me.  Not just a dead part, a past part, but a living, beating, breathing, active part of my soul.   A part of my soul that tugs, that cries out desperately for prayers, for help, for love and for devotion.  So sometimes, re-remembering something you have deliberately forgotten is painful.  But it is also beautiful.  And so I will seek to remember, and to be shaped by those people.