What we run away from and what we run toward, is very often
the same thing. To pretend that it is
not is a kind of closing of the eyes and turning away. Every time my father tells the story of how
by the grace of God, he somehow managed to survive terminal cancer the year
that I was born, I say, “That’s really incredible” but in my head I think, You
should have died. You really should have
died.
My life is not better or worse than any other because I had
an irresponsible father who treated my mother in a way that was breathtakingly callous and who was no father at all to my siblings.
He has suffered for his choices as we all do and I no longer hate him –
though there are still moments when I wish that he had died when he should
have, so that my mother could have had a much different, possibly much better
life.
In Africa the sun throws down its brightness on your head so
hard that you need to find a big leaf to cover yourself or it will drown you. But when darkness comes, it comes just as
hard. And there is nothing that can make
it undark before its time. I should have
known what was waiting for me when I went back to Goma. Now when I think of it, I realize that she
was always there and I was always riding towards her on an inexorable
trajectory that intersected with hers on a dark night at the end of a dark
road. I do not know her name and so I
call her Celeste. A heavenly body fell
from the sky that night and though I should have caught her, I did not.
The work that I did, the things that I saw and heard, they
all should have prepared me. They should
have forced me to have a plan in case I came upon someone in trouble. But I never came up with a plan because I
never thought I would do anything other than the absolute right thing. Fear never crossed my mind. I was foolish and incredibly deluded. Night fell down and covered everything up and
riding on a dark road with a dear friend and coworker I was in the middle of
the most important choice I would ever have to make in my life and I wasn’t even
aware of it until it was almost halfway over.
I never doubted that when I saw a woman dragged off in the night by four
men that I would do everything in my power to stop them. I never for a moment thought that the anger
that had grown up so strong around my throat from all of the stories, would
fail me. I never understood what it
means to be truly frightened and how that fear can determine your actions.
I told myself that I did not get out of the car because of
the guns pointed at us and because I loved my beautiful Malawian friend and
because I knew they would kill him before they killed me. I needed for that moment to believe that I
was saving his life, even though I was not saving hers. You will tell yourself anything in those
moments to give yourself an excuse to back away. But I know that the truth is that I did not
want to die, at least not in that way, on that night. I can talk about how many things I did that
night and the next day and how I launched an investigation and the death
threats that my coworkers and I received.
But none of that mattered because I knew that she would never be found.
I live in a quiet, quiet place now. So quiet that you can hear the branches moving in the trees when the
wind blows through them. Darkness falls
here too but it is a soft darkness full of deer and coyote. In this place of quietness, Africa is both a
dream and a thing that haunts me, a place I love and a place that reminds me of all I
failed to do. I am not brave, not
strong, at least not anymore so than anyone else. I didn’t get out of the car when I should
have, and therefore, I didn’t die with her as I should have. My greatest fear has always been that I might
one day become like my father. Staring
at my hands I used to wish them darker, so that all traces of him might be
erased. But it was not my father staring
down at her that night. It was me. And I made the choice to turn around, not
him. So whether or not I am my father’s
child was always my own choice to make.
And all that running away I did, brought me back around to face the
thing I feared the most.
We cast shadows on the truth and bear up lies to hide
ourselves from knowing. I can’t do that
anymore. I have to take responsibility
for what happened because I know that there is only one way through this place and it goes down that dark road to a small woman in a white
t-shirt. When I see her, I feel as if I
am hopelessly lost, as if I will never ever be able to see anything else
again. As if she will be forever
superimposed on my line of sight so that I must look through her to see
anything else. But I have learned that losing hope only causes me to add to the pile of things that I must atone for. A
friend of mine said that you should only hold as much guilt in your heart as is
beneficial to motivate you to do something good. So I am holding that part, the part that will
allow me still try to do something good.
We are at all times engulfed in pain and beauty, in tragedy and grace. I will not focus on one and ignore the other.
I know now what is waiting for me
further down the road. I know that
another chance will come and I am better prepared for it.
There is such exquisite beauty all around us. Beauty that renders us voiceless and
hushed. And I am in awe of everything
that is good and kind and loving and gentle and peaceful. And I can’t hate my father for his
selfishness and cruelty anymore because I know that we can all be selfish and
cruel at any time. There is only one
thing that matters in this world and it is the love that we have for
others. When you get to the heart of all
of the religions that have lasted, it is that love that is at the core of every
one of them. I pray every day that I will
one day learn what it means to really love someone, to love in the face of fear
and to render fear powerless with compassion.
