Catching Up: A Sad Story

I had lunch today with my host family. It's the first time I've eaten with them in a while. But it was different. There were only five of us at the table. And now, finally, I can write about what's been going on in the past several months. It's a sad story, so sorry for getting everyone down, but it's probably been one of the most powerful experiences I've had here in Guatemala, and it will probably be one of the few things from here that I will remember for the rest of my life.

I think I've written about my host family before. I lived with them my first three months in site and have spent quite a bit of time with them since moving into my house. We eat together, bake together, go into the city together, pasear together, play UNO together. They really have become my family here in Guatemala. I honestly think living with them permanently wouldn't have been bad if it hadn't been for my host dad's drinking problem.

Anyway, my host mom is the sweetest woman ever. She's in her early forties and will go out of her way to help anyone out. She has spent her whole life sacrificing for her family-working all day to make enough money to send the kids to private schools, cleaning the house and washing the clothes, helping the kids with their homework (or rather, doing their homework and projects for them at times, as is the norm here), making all of the food. No one really helps her out so she literally runs herself ragged from before the sun comes up to after it goes down. She confides in me a lot because she doesn't really have anyone else to talk to about her husband's alcoholism or her worries about her children's future. The family is heavily in debt and she is always worrying if they will have enough to pay the debt collectors that come every week. But somehow they always make it.

So one day in April I stopped by their house after a long break and her husband tells me that the youngest has been in the hospital. He apparently had developed juvenile diabetes. My host parents weren't sure what to do with him since this was a whole new thing to them. They had to give him insulin injections twice a day and completely change his diet. They also took him out of school for fear that he would continue to eat the junkfood and sweets that make up most Guatemalan children's snack. They had a lot of trouble getting his sugar to stabilize, finally figuring things out after attending a workshop for parents of diabetic kids at the hospital in Guatemala City. I am happy to say that now he is back on track and they are planning to enroll him in the local school next year. He doesn't fight the injections and he has accepted his changed diet.

In May, my host mom's mother had some heart problems (not sure how bad they were) and she ended up moving into the house with the family. Over a month she regained strength and actually became an extra set of hands to help around the house. She's a really sweet woman and it's been good to get to know her better since she now lives in town (instead of in the city).

Then in June, right before I went back to the States for a visit, I stopped by the house. My oldest host sister had been having problems with lightheadedness whenever she moved and with really intense headaches. My host family finally took her to the doctor in the city and they diagnosed hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. Since they couldn't take care of the condition near my site, they scheduled a date for doctors in Guatemala City to operate on her brain and install a shunt to drain the liquid and relieve pressure on her brain. I stopped by before leaving, knowing that brain surgery is no joke but believing that things would still work out. And I was right. I tried calling while in the States to see how the surgery had gone, but my host mom's phone had died and I didn't have another number. So I somewhat hesitantly visited their home after getting back to site, but there was my host sister, head shaved, doing well. Her vision was slightly blurred in one eye and her speech was a little stalled, but she looked good for someone who had undergone brain surgery a week and a half before. But things slowly started changing. A few weeks after surgery she developed a kidney infection and was on strong antibiotics. Slowly she started losing her vision, so my host parents stopped her antibiotics and took her back to the doctors in Guatemala City, who operated again. Before I knew it, her vision was gone, as was her ability to move, speak, or really do anything. My host mom, of course, was extremely distressed. I tried to comfort her as best as I could, simply hugging her whenever I saw her or cooking food. I didn't visit very often. I just can't express how hard it was to see this sixteen-year-old I had known for being a funny, hard working, and just normal teenage girl (and honestly the only person who ever helped my host mom out around the house), just lying in bed, unable to communicate the pain she was in or do anything for herself. My host mom dedicated all of her time to taking care of her daughter, feeding her through a feeding tube, washing her, giving her pain medication injections, talking to her (the doctors said she could still hear us), giving her oxygen when she needed it. And I noticed one good thing to come from this tragedy-my host dad stopped drinking. He was there for his family, helping out with his daughter, keeping the store open so the family wouldn't go completely bankrupt. It was also incredible to see the community support the family. Everyone knows the family because they own a store right at the entrance into town and my host family has lived here for generations. Everyone brought by food, people donated medicine and the equipment necessary to keep my host siste rat home, her friends from school dropped by nearly every day to talk to her and pray for her. Thus the family was somehow able to cope with the tragedy that just snuck up on them out of nowhere.

After being at home for a little less than a month, they had to take her to the hospital. My host mom called me from the hospital on September 5th to tell me that she had passed away. We talked for about three minutes, me kind of stuttering out whatever comforting words would pop into my mind, and I just kind of sat in my house that night. This wasn't an unexpected outcome. I had talked to my mom and dad about it and they told me that it was unlikely that she would live long at home. I just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon and I wish I had been there more to visit with her and to spend more time with my host parents. I've been trying to make up for it and have spent quite a lot of time with my host family, time that I will always remember-going to the funeral, marching with the procession to the cemetery in the pouring rain, walking back from the cemetery with my host mom, visiting the tomb again the next day with the whole family, attending some of the prayer ceremonies Catholics hold for nine days after the death. The hardest thing for me to see that got me to tear up every time was seeing my host mom and host grandmother in so much pain. They would have never thought about losing a daughter/granddaughter so early in her life. It is also hard to see the younger kids, knowing that this is something they will carry the rest of their lives. They took the whole progression of events very well, but since they're so young they probably don't know what to think or feel yet. It will be especially hard on my other host sister, who is twelve now but still doesn't like to sleep alone. She shared a room and a bed with her older sister until recently. I asked about how she was doing, offering to sleep over if she was taking things badly, and my host mom told me that she was surprisingly doing fine. Hopefully she will continue to be okay.

And then today I stopped by to say hi and drop off some food, and ended up staying for lunch. My host mom is better now-she was able to joke around with her kids and me at lunch-as is my host dad, who hasn't been drinking, and my host grandmother, who is traveling around different parts of the country with her friends. We talk about her daughter a little, especially about how good she was at drawing (her sister wants to be an artist now) or how well she could play the trumpet. There will always be a little shrine for her in the house where her family will remember her as she was in good days. We will go to the cemetery on All Saint's Day to paint the tomb in which she was laid to rest blue, her favorite color. And the family will keep on plugging away, always remembering the daughter they lost.

Whew. Sorry for the emotional roller coaster. I haven't really been able to talk/write about it before now and I've been up and down a lot this past month, but I'm back to normal now. Anyway, what should we all take away from this story? I know it's cliched, but live every day like it's your last. You never know when some rare brain condition will sneak up on you and take you out of commission. And be thankful for your health. And (in what may be a weak/inappropriate attempt at humor), never undergo brain surgery in Guatemala. Also, please pray for my host mom and dad, that they will continue to remain strong and will not lose faith in this difficult time.