King

The heart has a mysterious way of saying the things that the tongue cannot. With my very small knowledge of Thai, I have had to rely more and more on entering into everyday conversations with my heart rather than with my words. Jean Vanier says,

“To love someone is to show them their beauty, their worth, their importance; it is to understand them, understand their cries and their body language; it is to rejoice in their presence, spend time in their company and communicate with them. To love is to live a heart-to-heart relationship with another, giving to and receiving from each other.”

To learn how to feel so deeply, to learn how to love through action and presence is both a wonderful blessing and an immense curse.

I wish I could say that I read this quote this week under much more ideal situations, and not on the back of a memorial card. This week the Care Center and the larger Garden of Friendship community lost a very special person. King was a 23-year-old patient at the Care Center who faced every new day and every situation with wonder and awe. King was born with HIV and was raised by his aunt after his mother passed away from HIV when he was two years old. Four years ago, King suffered a brain infection that left him with limited lower body mobility and impaired use of his left arm. The brain infection also caused him to lose almost all of his speech capacity, except for the ability to count just past ten and to make surprised “ooh” and “oww” sounds.

Following our tour of the Care Center on our first day, I told Tamarah that I already knew that King and I would have a special connection. On that day, it was impossible for me to realize the extent to which our connection would grow or that it would be cut incredibly short.

I started every single morning greeting King and ended every single workday with saying goodbye to King. On his bed next to his head sat a pink bear with “Have a great day” written on the belly. Every morning as I got to work, I would enter King’s room, pick up and shake the bear so that the bells around the collar would chime and tell him good morning. His smile reached from ear to ear. Leaving work, I would do the same, always adding that I would see him bright and early the next morning. At his funeral on Thursday, I was composed the entire time, even when pouring water over his body in the casket (part of the Buddhist funeral ceremony). He did not look like himself - maybe a botched wax replica of himself, but he was not the always smiling, always laughing King I’d loved for the past two months. It was easy to forget that that was King lying there. I kept my cool for almost the whole ceremony, but when they pulled that bear out of the casket in order to burn it with the rest of his belongings, I could not stop the tears for pouring down my face. That made it all real.

King had been my fountain of light here in Nong Khai. Every week he was my partner for art therapy sessions and almost every day I helped to bathe him and assisted him with physical therapy. While it was my job to help him, I think that King helped me more that he could ever know. He helped to show me my own vulnerabilities but also the forces and capacity for love in my heart. When hearts are connected and there is no need for words, a passing smile or a whispered laugh are just as concrete a conversation.

On the Monday before King passed, his eyes radiated a deep sadness that I had not seen from him before. He had stopped eating and he would not take his medicine. His body began to grow weaker. Passing his bedroom after bathing another patient, I could not help but notice the pain and solitude in his eyes. It was a pain that locked my own eyes and pulled me in. I pulled up a chair next to his bed and in silence, held his hand for forty minutes. While our mouths were silent, there was a conversation going on. I’m not exactly sure what our hearts were saying to each other, but I hope mine was telling him how special he was to me. After leaving, I stood outside his open window and peered into his bedroom. The sadness had not left his eyes and I could tell he was in a lot of pain. “I just want to be able to help you”, I said to him in Thai. He smiled and began to laugh, the only sign of joy I had seen from him all day.

An hour later, King was put on a feeding tube. His eyes had lost any semblance of the carefree boy I’d known. Again, I could not help but be drawn into his room. I stood above his bed and rubbed the back of my hand along his cheek while humming “Hush Little Baby”, the only song that came to mind at the time, to him. His face began to relax and he started to fall asleep. I did not know that this would be my last fully conscious interaction with King, but I am glad that it was.

King was taken to the hospital the next morning. His body was visibly deteriorating and he was weak beyond repair. He would pass away just 5 hours later. On the afternoon that King passed away, all of the staff members from the Care Center as well as some other Friendship Center staff members were present. While it was really hard to watch him take his last breaths, I am really glad that I got to be there to comfort him and hold his hand one more time. However, it was also really hard to see that just one day before, he had held my hand back, squeezing my palm every few minutes. One day later, his hand was cold and there was no reciprocation of him holding my hand. We didn’t find out until the day of his funeral, but it had been his 23rd birthday.

I’ve never been really good at expressing my feelings. I am often so in tune with the feelings and the wants and needs of others that I often neglect my own feelings and wants and needs. When telling my best friend Alyssa about the passing away of King, she immediately asked me if I was actually doing okay or if I was “doing the Bridgid pretending okay thing”. She knows me well. If there is one thing I’m good at it is pretending I’m okay when I’m not. But you know what, this time I think I’m really okay. Don’t get me wrong. It’s been an incredibly hard week. I cried a lot on Tuesday after he passed and at the funeral on Thursday and if there is one thing I’m not good at – it’s crying. There hasn’t been a moment this week that I have not thought of King or the image of his aunt consoling me at the funeral, both our hearts and our tears having a conversation about the wonder that was her “son”. But I also feel so loved incredibly loved here, which makes grieving and healing a lot easier.

I don’t think I will ever forget about King. He will be a part of me forever. His smile will forever be ingrained in my memory. I hope that his short life can be a model of curiosity, of joy, and excitement for my own life. I’m not sure why King had to be taken so quickly, but I am glad that our hearts were able to have so many meaningful conversations. I hope my heart was whispering to him how beautiful and worthy and important he was, because his heart was helping me to learn that in myself.