What Value a Life?

published in the December, 2014 issue of "The Larcenist" literary journal, in full

What Value a Life?
para Daniela, que Dios te cuiden en todos

Siete Pinos, Guatemala, 2003

I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life as the three times I faced my former neighbor, Daniela. There is a concept among the Hindus, known as the kalya mittra- “noble friend”- the person who comes into your life, and holds up a mirror to your soul, making you realize your strengths or own your weaknesses. Daniela was one of them for me, I think. She humbled me completely, and forced me to step outside my boundaries of what I knew I was and was not capable of. This tiny woman made me acutely aware of every imperfection , every broken promise, every mistake I ever made.

I. Rosi

I was preparing to go spend the day at the office when Stacy came knocking at the door. “Come quickly," she said, “It’s Daniela. Bring your medicines.”

“What?” I asked, taken somewhat aback. “What kind of animal is it that’s hurt?” I inquired.  The only thing I knew she had were chickens and typically you don’t call the vet when a chicken is hurt or ill, unless it’s all of them.

“It’s actually… her daughter.”

I stared at her. You’ve got to be kidding me, right? I was an animal field technician, doing my best to cover a veterinarian’s job in this place. When I took the assignment, they’d issued me two books- “Where There is No Vet”, a field manual for emergency veterinary medicine in the third world, and the corresponding title, “Where There is No Doctor”.  The doctor was now…me… as the person available who had the most medical training.

Stacy filled me in as we walked to Daniela’s house. Her little girl, Rosalita, was three years old. Rosi had been helping her mom cook in the kitchen, and tend the baby, when she accidentally pulled a pot of boiling water off the fire and onto her face, neck and back. She’d been pretty severely burned, from what I could gather.

I steeled myself for what I was about to see, and did a mental checklist in my head. I expected a fresh severe second-degree burn, a shrieking, frightened child, a scared mother. My Spanish was not very good yet, and I needed Stacy to translate for me. Before I could treat the child, my toughest challengee I thought would be to gain the mother’s trust. I was very new in town.

Daniela opened the door, crying. “Ella esta enferma” she repeated,, over and over, “Ay Dios, no se lo que puedo hacer!” (She’s sick, My God, I don’t know what I can do”)

The child was not much bigger than an 18 month-old in the States. She was listless, subdued, ashy colored. There was a dirty towel wrapped around her shoulder. She had a festering wound on the side of her little cheek. I looked sharply at the mother, and asked, in Spanish, “When did this happen?”

“Hace un mes, mas o menos.”

A MONTH ago? A Month?

“Has visitado un doctor?”

“No puedo- por mi bebe” (“I can’t- for my baby”)

I had to push anger and judgment aside in my mind. I looked at Stacy. It was obvious to me that Rosi was very sick. I hadn’t even examined the burn site yet. “Stacy, I’m going to need you to talk them both through this, all right? I can smell from here that the wound is infected, and I don’t know what I’m going to find. But it’s clear that child will need a doctor, not just First Aid. I may be able to help her, but she will need more than what I can do, and you’re going to have to convince Daniela, ok?"

Stacy nodded,and swallowed. “I’ll do what I can.” She said a few sentences to Daniela, and assured the woman she could trust me.

“Necesito quitar la blusa y toalla” I said. (I need to remove her blouse and towel). Daniela nodded, crying. We moved around the side of the house, for privacy, and for light. The inside of the house was too dim. It was the dry season, and everything was covered in a fine layer of silt. “Tambien, necesito agua.”

I waited for Daniela to return with a palangana (little plastic bowl) of water.  Then, I removed Rosi’s blouse, and carefully unwound the makeshift bandage. I heard Stacy give a small scream, and pushed it out of my mind to focus on what was in front of me. The girl’s back was fully one-third covered with a supporating wound, blackened, infected, oozing, and gangrenous where the flesh had died and rotted. At the center, the injury was ½” deep, like a crater, where the water had burned the worst. Dear God in Heaven, this child needs a doctor. The doctor was the hospital two hours away, where she would not be guaranteed treatment, because she was a Maya. There was no certitude of a doctor- all she had was me. I had to act on this knowledge. The force of what I was looking at hit me like a sucker punch.

“Stacy, I can’t remember any Spanish right now,” I whispered, near tears. I need you to translate for me, ok hon?"

“I don’t know if I can.”

I looked up, and she was about to faint. This brought me back to my own senses. “Stacy” I said sharply. “I need you! Snap the f**k out of it!”

She shook her head, and sat down. She was crying. I looked her in the eyes, as I needed her help. I couldn't do this alone. I waited for her to come back into focus, and I put her to work. I spoke slowly, “Tell Daniela I need to… remove big areas of skin. Its going to be… agonizing. For all of us.”

Stacy slowly regained her composure, and chose her words very carefully.

“Tell her I need her to hold her daughter down while I do it.”
“Then I need her to boil water to sterilize a towel.”
“Then, this girl will need antibiotics.”

I met the child’s gaze- trying to make myself empathize with how scared and hurting she was, and knowing that I had to hurt her more.  That I had nothing to adequately control pain.  “Rosi? I need to do something right now, and it’s going to hurt. You need to hold as still as you can for me, ok, darling?” My Spanish was coming back a little. Enough for her to trust me. I gave her an Ibuprofen, and looked in my veterinary supply kit. I had about 2 cc’s of lidocaine. It had to be enough. I soaked a gauze pad in lidocaine, and dabbed in gently on the outer edges of the wound. Rosi winced under my touch, and I quickly ascertained the extent of the nerve damage.

I drew in my breath, and picked up another sterile gauze pad, and opened my chlorhexiderm scrub- the strongest stuff I had. Cold surgical sterilant.

I started in the middle of her back, where the flesh was dead. I sterilized my pocketknife in a lighter flame, cooled in sterilant, and scraped away chunks of blackened, putrefying skin, a little at a time. The skin underneath was reddish pink scar tissue, inflamed. I washed carefully with gauze soaked in chlorhexiderm, working from the inside outwards to the edge. I simply numbed my mind while I did it. In the center the little girl did not notice what I was doing at all- the nerve endings had been completely destroyed by the depth of the burn. She would probably never regain feeling there.

I worked slowly, and deliberately. I asked Stacy to talk to me, to talk to the child, to talk to the mother. Please, help keep her mind off what I am doing here. I heard her ask why the mother has waited so long to seek treatment, and caught enough of the story to be stunned and have to periodically stop what I was doing, because my hands were shaking so badly. As I peeled away layers of dead skin, I let the implications of the words fall in a cloud around me, wrap me in their power, and leave me as breathless as the barnyard stench of the rotting flesh in front of me.

“My husband, he left me for another woman two months ago, and is not coming back”
“I live on the charity of my in-laws- I have no money”
“If I go to doctor, he tell everyone I am a bad mother, they take Rosi away”
“I go to curandero (shaman) and he give me herbs but say she will not recover until my baby is delivered. If she recover before then, my baby die”
“He also say, cannot trust doctor, medicines of science bad for the spirit, will steal my child’s soul”

I had not realized Daniela was pregnant. These women are small and round, inherently, and they wrap themselves in skirts and aprons and blankets and towels. It can be impossible to tell until they are in their 6th month or so. There is a belief that if a child gets ill, the spirit of the unborn baby is also in danger. If the child recovers, the baby will die. The unborn are more revered than the living here, too. It was a set of beliefs that I simply could not force my mind around, no matter what.

I continued to debride the infection, and I thought about what I was doing. As I moved towards the edge, Rosi started feeling it, even with the lidocaine having had time to sink in. I motioned for her mother to hold her, tight, while Rosi started whimpering, then crying, then shrieking. I continued to clean away pus, black skin, necrosis. The sounds of her distress pounded in my soul as I worked. “I know honey, I know, I’m so sorry, so very very sorry,” I kept repeating, in a singsong, soothing but trembling voice, as I worked as efficiently as I could. I’m pretty sure Stacy vomited- she had to walk away, tears streaming, and she looked pretty ill. I couldn’t think about her.

Finally, finally, it was done, three hours later. The child’s back looked like it had been flayed. The edges of the excision were ragged, and oozing. We waved away flies. I applied triple antibiotic ointment to the edges, where the wound was wet, but left the center to dry. I asked for a clean towel. I used all the gauze I had to pack the wound, then laid the clean towel over the area. I wrapped it round with two Ace bandages.

Then came the argument with Daniela, “you need to take her to the doctor. At least, the man in town who has the pharmacy” (there was person trained in advanced First Aid in the next village, who had a small stock of basic medicines, and was not well liked).

“There is no money.” I gave her what was left in my pocket “This will buy medicine.”
“He will think I’m a bad mother.”
“He will give me medicines that will not work.”

At this point even mild-mannered Stacy was angry, and said what I could not bring myself to. “Rosi will die of infection if she does not get the medicine she needs”

I looked in my kit. I had a bottle of injectable penicillin, veterinary grade. I had no dosing tables for humans, and would have to travel 4 hours to look it up. I realized I might have to. I might have to trust a child’s life with the same medicine I’ve been injecting into cows, reusing needles because I cannot afford enough for one-time use. The thought made me very uneasy- until I realized I could possibly walk into the store and buy a new bottle if I had to. Hell, I could walk over to the doctor myself and buy what she needed. I twould be the last of my meager allowance, but I had more coming in, and Daniela did not.

Daniela thanked us for our help. In English, I told Stacy that if I had to, I would give Rosi an injection myself, or see if the doctor would sell me a bottle of penicillin for her, but we had to give the mother the choice to do the right thing.

Something we said got through to her, as Daniela took the child to the man at the pharmacy, the one she didn't trust. He was furious with her, and gave her a scolding she never forgot. Without our intervention, and the antibiotics he gave her, Rosalita would have succumbed to systemic infection within 3 days. He examined my work, and said there was nothing more anyone could do there- now we just had to make sure the medicines had a chance to work.

II. Constancia

Rosalita survived, and she luckily did not associate me with pain. She was a shy but lovely child, and became less reserved around me in time, as her mother also came around. We remained close as neighbors, and her mother-in-law and I were good friends. Things did not get easier- as the months wore on, and Daniela’s belly grew larger, rounder-  and it was clear that her husband was not returning. Her own family would not take her back. She had no useful skills, she could not even read or write. For all intents and purposes, she and her two children were wards of the village, and were tended to out of duty and charity if perhaps not exactly love. She had a home, food, blankets, and clothes for the children.

Her due date came in the rainy season, in August. I was returning on horseback from a field excursion on a Tuesday evening when I was told she was in labor. Wednesday morning, I stopped by on my way to the office, and she was still in labor, Five hours later, at lunch time, her mother-in-law came to ask me if I would help attend to the birth, now into its 18th hour.

I walked into the dark interior of Daniela’s home, a little 2-room adobe hut with no windows. There was pallet made up on the floor, a mattress covered with plastic, and layered with wool blankets. There was a fire burning on the dirt floor in the middle of the room.

Daniela squatted, fully clothed, on the floor next to the fire. She was exhausted, drained, pale looking. I could see a huge puddle of blood in the dirt between her legs. A woman I did not recognize (the midwife) was holding her up, as she appeared so weak I thought she might pass out. It was obviously a difficult labor. I quickly ascertained there were no medical supplies in the room. Just four women.

There is a taboo in their highland culture about looking at a woman’s genital region- for any reason. I desperately wanted to examine Daniela, but could not. The midwife was navigating by touch. I could tell she was trying to turn the baby, probably a breech birth, given the amount of time and agony. I felt for Daniela’s pulse, and found it rapid and weak. She had screamed so much she had no voice left.

She weakly held my hand and sobbed against my shoulder while the midwife did her work.  I was powerless, as there wasn’t anything at all I could do. She and the baby would survive this, or they wouldn’t. I was terrified they were going to ask me to perform a C-section, as the baby had been stuck a while. I prayed under my breath with everything I had in me. Please God help her through this, please.

Juana, the mother-in-law, tended the fire while Daniela mustered the strength somehow to keep pushing. Finally, an hour after I arrived, the baby was freed from the birth canal. The midwife took the newborn, and cut the umbilical cord, while Juana and I carried Daniela to the pallet on the floor. Again, I wish I could have examined her, for tears, hemorrhaging, prolapse, etc. but I was socially bound against lifting her skirt. I gently palpated as much as I dared, and felt that she was gushing blood. Jauna and I waited, and delivered the placenta together, gently, trying not to hurt the exhausted woman. I pulled a bottle of iodine out of my medical kit, and a bar of soap, and we washed and sterilized both mother and child.

It was a little girl. The midwife laid her on Daniela’s chest, tucked under the blanket to keep her warm. She was so tiny- she could not have been more than four pounds. We counted fingers and toes, checked features, I listened to her heart. There was nothing more we could do for an exam. Once again, there was no doctor where a doctor was needed.

Daniela was given a towel soaked in cold water to staunch the bleeding between her legs. She needed pitocin, she needed sutures, she needed vitamins and fluids, and a heating blanket. She needed a husband to hold her and celebrate the birth of their child. As she passed off into sleep, I was struck at this woman’s quiet courage. I wished I could reassure her, but there was nothing I could say. All I could offer was meager- animal medicines fit for third world field conditions. Sadly, it was all she had.

I went back to my own house, and boiled water on the cookstove. I dropped an iron nail into it, and added juice from 4 lemons- all I had in the house. I let the concoction steep several hours on simmer, then added two cups of sugar and a teaspoon of salt. A homemade electrolyte and iron tonic.

I made oatmeal, and added bananas, raisins, and walnuts- more electrolytes, sugars, proteins, pure energy. Through the week, I made her chicken pot pie, for the additional protein. I gave her my standard issue pre-natal vitamins. I traded vitamin injections for the cows with the neighbors for glasses of milk, precious calcium, and took her a glass a day. Juana paid for the midwife, cleaned her house, took care of her children, tended her. Daniela accepted all we could give her, and after two weeks, she recovered her strength. Soon she was up and about again as if nothing had happened.

The little girl, upon surviving for two full weeks, was named “Constancia”. As with all other Mayan infants, she was wrapped in a shawl and spent all of her time strapped to her mom’s back, while the second-youngest was taught her first steps. Mother and child are seldom separated in this place for any length of time, as mothers deftly maneuver the sling holding the baby from back to front, as need be. I was always amazed that, in a county where 45% of the population is under age 15, one simply never heard squalling infants, or shrieking children. I wondered if it is a factor of the proximity to which they are kept by their mothers?

III. Return to Site- 2005

I was supposed to be stationed there until December, 2005- and had already inquired about extending my service another year. There was talk of making me a trainer. I was thrilled. I had five huge projects underway, including a $22,000 livestock development project that would have brought a steady source of income to the region. I had a youth leadership group, and was teaching them First Aid skills, to serve their communities in emergencies like the one that happened with Rosi. I was working with women’s groups, teaching them about nutrition, anatomy, menstrual cycles. Natural fertility control measures, desperately needed in a place where birth control was expressly forbidden, and these poor women had 8-12 children, on average. We were making headway, and I felt really good about myself professionally.

There was a perfect storm of events, though, going on in me. First, I was sick. Really sick. It would eventually be discovered that I had a near lethal infestation of amoebas, hookworms, and 3 other exotic parasites. All I knew was that I was losing weight, throwing up 2 of every three meals, and passing pure liquid blood. My monthly cycles stopped, because my body couldn’t nourish the endometrium.

On top of this, I was struggling emotionally. Four of my friends were raped within five months. Left to my own thoughts, isolated, alone, I was forced to confront issues surrounding this topic that had been buried for 12 years without resolution. I had then watched 12 people die in front of me in a horrific traffic accident, thrown from a truck I was supposed to be on. The blood flowing down the road is an image I cannot ever burn out my mind. Finally, my boyfriend, another volunteer, was slowly going insane, and had started sleeping with the neighbor’s children, which triggered even earlier repressed memories, and had forced me into a state of near catatonia. 

Calling what happened to me a “nervous breakdown triggered by PTSD” would probably be the best euphemism I can think of for describing the situation. I was diagnosed, placed on heavy medications, and medically evacuated home. I weighed 93 pounds and could barely remember my own name. I left behind a psycho ex, my dog, my horse, my projects, and everything that meant the entire world to me at the moment. Over teh next six months, I fought like hell to return, and was denied, twice. I was devastated. All my work was gone. I dreamed of my dog every night. I grieved as though I'd lost a person instead of my work.

I continued working on the project, and secured support for it in the Guatemala embassy and from private businesses and federal funding in the US. We sent experimental crops from Peru, and petitioned the President to lift the ban on sheep so we could follow through with our project for importation. I returned to Guatemala in Jnauary 2005, on my own money, to work on the project, visiting for a week.

I arrived in Siete Pinos, and was welcomed with open arms- all my friends, including Juana, Daniela, my landlord, the kids, all of them. Save one. I looked around, but Constancia was missing. 2004 had been a particularly tough year, and the crops had failed. The children had not grown an inch since I left. Many babies did not make it. Constancia was one of them.

I blamed myself. I kept saying, “if only I had done more, tried harder, had my s**t together, maybe there was something more I could have done. Maybe if they had let me stay.” I blamed myself for my weakness, for needing help, for not just being able to “f*****g deal with it."

All the blame in the world doesn’t bring back a dead baby, though. Later that day, ironically, was the happiest moment of my life. I had worked with seven organizations there, as a consultant, and I was taken to the village of Chiabal, the site of our slaughterhouse. I was presented with a beautiful, handmade, hand woven jacket, traditional garb, and made an honorary Maya that day. I had held everything together until then, but I could not any more. I fell to my knees, sobbing. I could not feel like I deserved this bounty, this generosity. I had failed, and my failure had a face. Daniela’s. Everything that I was working for could be summed up in her struggles, every failure that was mine she could take stock of.

IV. Reprise

It is said that a calling is that which you cannot walk away from. Now, at age 34, I am finally at a place where I can put these events into their proper perspective, I think. My time in Guatemala changed me. A part of me died there, the part that can relate to women who care about tile mildew and soap scum and matching summer party sets. I am putting events into motion, I hope, that will let me finally realize my vision, my dreams, for the people I served with on that mountaintop.

The last seven years have been a prayer for redemption whispered from a spirit broken beyond repair. I have had a difficult time fitting in, but have tried. I recently left the corporate world, to move to academia, and pursue a Master’s degree that may let me work again with “my” people. As I think on it, the reasons I left were very complicated.

I close my eyes and put myself back there in that village, with its 22% infant mortality rate, its 86% illiteracy rate, the 2-hour journey to a doctor that is only undertaken when people are dying. I think about the symbiotic relationship the people have with dogs: the dogs are not fed, but rather subsist on human excrement, which is rife with undigested protein. Thus the yard are cleaned, and the chickens and families are protected. I squeeze my eyes harder, and let the picture shimmer into a more personal face- Rosi, almost dying from being burned by a pot of water for lack of basic medical care. A mother giving birth on a dirt floor of a hut. The baby for whom there wasn’t enough food to go around. When the tears flow, it is Daniela I think of. I am humbled before her.

I had to leave the corporate environment, because when I open my eyes and look around, there is no-one there can adequately answer my simple question, “what value a life?”

There was talk of the bottom line and meeting production goals. There was comraderie and problem-solving. We were producing animals for life-saving research- a very worthwhile endeavour. Yet when I heard the words, “profit margin” I envisioned medical supplies, outbuildings, schools, vitamins. Something quite different than 99% of the people I worked with. And if I ask the question, “what value that baby’s life, once she is born and brought into this world?”, I could have counted on one hand the ones who might have said, “the same as my own, of course. the same as my own."

Thank you, Daniela, for being the kalya-mittra who made me face my own feelings of inadequacy, so that I may not let them stand in the way of trying to still do good works, and try to inspire others who want to learn. I have so much further to go, but I will never forget you, and what you taught me. Three times, you crossed my path, and each time, the slamming force of the distance between my reality and yours hits me like a ton of bricks. You keep me honest.



















 

Author's Note

Excerpt published in the University of Connecticut human rights journal "Namaste" 2010 edition.

This is a true story. It does not nearly adequately capture what this was like, but will have to do for now. Probably not my best work, from a literary perspective, but it needed to be written. I will most likely revise as I reread it. I welcome any feedback.

Reviews

[Vesa Lee]

I feel like I'm treading on scared ground here.
One of a handful of pieces I've read that have brought tears to my eyes...
It's heartbreaking.
I can't explain it any other way other than to say this truly affected me.
Deeply.

I'm so very glad you chose to put this down in words and share.
We need to read more of this. It keeps us human.
It keeps us honest.
Thank you for that.

[Marie Anzalone]

Vesa, your words are, and have always been, for me, a treasure. Wonderful beyond knowing. Thank you.

[.Bunnie.]

This is such a beautiful and touching tale.... The way you tell it is perfect. Everything flowed so well, and you give a vastly detailed picture of life in that area of the world. It's amazing how similar we all are, and yet so different in a thousand different ways. There's so many emotions entangled in this that the reader can't help but feel a bit like an emotional wreck and understand to a small degree how you felt, and the things you had to deal with and overcome.

I have to say that I'm truly sorry you had to go through the things you went through. Although, you probably helped in so many more ways than even you could recognize. I commend you for all the brave, terribly tragic things that you had to do to save another life. I get woozy at the mere sight of a needle...but to have to scrape a poor 3 year old's back that's literally rotting? Just reading it was hard enough.... I can't even begin to imagine what it was like doing it. The smell, the sight, the sounds...so tragic.

I really have no suggestions to make this story better. I just noticed a couple of either grammatical or spelling or punctuation errors throughout--but not really too many. Other than that, BEYOND fantastical job!!!

Thanks so much for submitting this piece into my contest.

[lawrence bear]

Marie,

I must say, you are a strong women to face all that pain and go through it. This is a moving piece, to help that child and to see what you had to go through pulled my heart, I couldn't imagine myself in that situation given if I had the medical practice as a vet, to see the such pain and feel it and live it through your eyes in this story. One can only endure so much, yet you gave every piece of your heart to help those that are unfortunate than us.
I was saddened to learn about constancia, I admire your dedication to these people, and your heart. Truly you are a hero, they felt you as one of their own. I love your last few words... "what value that baby's life, once she is born and brought into this world?" I could have counted on one hand the ones who might have said, "the same as my own, of course. the same as my own" these are strong words, but so true.
thank you for asking me to read this, it touches the heart.
Lawrence

[Jess]

I hadn't heard this story as it happened, and I'm glad I sdidn't because I think it was made even more powerful the way you organized it. I think the kalya mittra theme was a beautiful addition that helped the different scenes flow together. Presenting it the way you did showed how much you have reflected on your relationship to Daniela and I think the indicidual circumstances are much more powerful in this context than they would have been if presented as separate stories. Well done (again!).

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

i have tears flowing from my eyes.. this is heartbreaking and so so sad .. it is so decadent to me the things the outrafeously wealthy spend their money on like a pair of 300$ underwear! look what that could do for Daniella and others like her.. this is something that should not be! i wish i were rich to help those like Daniella her babies would be such a good feeling .. thank you and Stacy for what you did and do .. it is honorable. I will never complain about a cold sandwich again! We think we have nothing but we are weatlhy compared to Daniella .. very sobering and moving.
Chloe
xoxo

[Ellen Hammond]

Such a heart wrenching story that speaks on so many levels of the injustice in the world. There are a few minor typos but this story is riveting and I wouldn't change a thing. It is obviously written by a very compassionate woman who reaches out to help all she can, with whatever she has to work with. Your body may have been weakened for a time, but your spirit has grown very strong.

No doubt you have been a true God send to that village. From reading this story, I am sure that many are blessed through you. On top of your education and your 'training in the trenches' as they used to say, you have also been given a very special talent for writing it all in a way that should make all who read it, earnestly say, "Please tell me what I can do to help?" If more experienced what you have it could change the world as those who have reach out in compassion to help their neighbor and learn to love them as such. May God bless you indeed and in deed.

[Mark]

Outside of three or four typos, I hope you do not change a word of it! It is forceful, compassionate, plaintive, honest; it is at its heart, everything that Marie Anzalone is at hers. It's a shame to have to admit it, but one need not go to Guatemala to find such deprivation--much the same might be seen any given day in Appalachia!
It is a hateful, despicable situation where the number of dollars one possesses or controls determines the worth of your life, but whole countries, indeed whole cultures, and not merely individuals are scuffed to the side, overlooked for want of negotiable assets. Whether you were Vista, or Peace Corps, or a free agent matters little, for you saw need, and were moved to alleviate it, even though it cost you enormous personal loss. If only more people possessed such qualities as these, and in such measure! My admiration of you has taken a quantum leap, Rachael--I will not ever forget this story, its protagonists, its revelations nor least of all, its Author!

[Spit_and_Prayers]

You have a true gift for writing, fortunate indeed am I for stumbling across your page. The emotion was real, the setting vivid, the pain agonizing, the revelation enlightening. I asked my English teacher last year, why do we study literature, not because I didn't think we should, I'd just never heard a reason. This here, this is the reason, because the humanity of writing like this is what teaches us, inspires us, and unites us on this increasingly connected planet of ours. Now above all we need humanity, and you have given it too us in all its pain and beauty. Thank you.

[Sonali]

A life changing story.. it reminded me of the jolie movie- Beyond Borders... well hope to read another fine work of yours soon.Cheerz.

[Jamie S.]

Your strength and dedication amazes me. You put yourself through the ringer finacially, physically, mentally and spiritually. Your writing is wonderful, your strength will allow you to do anything you want to do.
Thank you for sending me this piece of your life, you inspire me!

-Jamie

[Through the Gateway]

Oh my. Such a life lived in such a short time. I understand completely why you need to go back. There, dear, is home.

A powerful story that I'll never forget.