Half way gone

I have started to spend a few nights with A, listening to him, he says he needs me. I sit there. I look away. We are in downtown Jacmel, A and I. I finish asking him about what brings his sadness. I am worried about him. He talks to me, he tells me he needs to leave this all. He needs to get out to save himself and his sanity. I don’t know where he will go or what he will do. I wish I could comfort him with hope. I know there is hope. I don’t know where to find it during that conversation. My thoughts pause. hear the church in the background. The people are singing. I continue to look away in the other direction. Tears stream down my face. My eyes burn. I never had a lack of options. I never had a lack of opportunity. There was always a outlet in front of me, somewhere, somehow. And there were so many more I couldn’t see. I look straight ahead into nothing past the metal fence into the darkness. I pray, I pray for the people, I pray for him. Our whole lives we search for satisfaction and the lives of the people we would find least satisfying sit satisfied and okay with their situation. I cannot understand it, but my heart does. That moment has killed me softly. Tears flood my face again. The fall slowly, securely somewhere. Each tear in Haiti has left a small needle size puncture in my heart I feel. My heart needs to be wounded, I knew that before I came. It takes a broken heart to be receptive to Gods light and truth. I am so thankful for the few things I have with me in Haiti. It is very rare I cry with such clarity ever. It is rare I even cry. It takes something to drown me fully before tears come down my face. I am wounded.

I have reached my halfway point in Haiti this week. I sit there, my face sticky. There has been clarity. I came to understand how to be thankful. During those moments of epiphany in prayer I have understood so much more than I thought I ever would in 20 days, and there’s only so much more to come. I stand at the crossroads, Haiti has transformed me slowly, but it has also killed me softly. Soft and slow is beautiful. Half way there, and half way gone.