Day 33 - Six Years of Tears

August 13, 2012 (Sam)

      Six years ago, during my first trip to Kenya, a little 3-year old girl named Grace ran into my life and stole my heart. She was one of the sweetest little girls I’d ever met in my life. She had plump little brown cheeks, and braids full of beads that clicked together when she ran. She had the worst pouty face I’d ever seen and with one look could have convinced me to bring her the world on a platter. Her mother worked at Beacon of Hope as a seamstress, so every day, she would bring Grace with her to work, and every day, Grace would end up in my arms, clinging to my neck, threatening tears if I ever even indicated that I might set her down. It broke my heart the last time I saw her, hand-in-hand with her mother, walking away from Beacon on our last day there. Occasionally, she’d turn around, wrench her arm out of her mother’s grip, and wave back at me. I was crying.

      Today, Grace’s mother still works at Beacon of Hope. A few days after arriving, I went and found her and brought her some photos of Grace and I taken six years ago. I could tell it meant the world to her. Grace is now 9, she told me, far too old to attend school at Beacon Academy anymore. “Tell her I said hello and please show her the pictures,” I asked. She promised she would.

      Today, Monday, Christina and I were walking around Beacon’s campus after work and we ran into Grace’s mother again. She excitedly told me that Grace was here today; she’d come to Beacon’s clinic to be treated after a terrible day of stomach sickness. But she insisted that I go up and visit her anyway. Suppressing a dead sprint, I trotted toward the top of the hill with Christina in tow, and from a ways off, I could make out a young girl, very thin, with no shoes and wearing dirty clothes walking towards us. We got closer and her shy brown eyes locked with mine. It was Grace. Much taller now, much thinner, much more grown up, but still the same sweet little girl. I bent down. “Grace?” I asked, “Yes,” she replied softly. “I’m Sam. Do you remember me? Did your mom show you the pictures I gave her?” “Yes,” she replied again quietly. I just looked at her for a few minutes.

      Back at the bottom of the hill, we sat and talked with her mother for a few minutes. I asked how their family is doing, and with obvious pain in her voice, she replied, “God is good. He is faithful. But it is very hard. I have three [children], and sometimes we have no food. Grace faints when she doesn’t get enough to eat. She gets sick often. The other day she fainted on the road and a stranger found her and brought her here. The money is so hard. I work but it is still hard providing. We need to find money for her school fees. If you can find a way to have her school fees paid for... we need it.”

      We start walking back up the hill towards the gate together. Grace was in front of me, and I could see her, visibly weak, so thin, sick, wearing her mother’s tattered purple shoes, four sizes too big for her, over her cracked, swollen feet. I stepped up next to her and told her that because of the hard day she’d had, I thought it would be better if she were carried up to the gate. A smile spread across her face and she pulled her arms around my neck. She is so light. We trudged up the hill, Grace in my arms, me holding back tears. Every time I stepped on an unstable rock her grip around my neck would tighten. When we were almost to the gate, she leaned her head back and whispered in my ear, “I saw the pictures. You used to carry me like this.” We walked on together in silence, my vision obscured by tears. We got to the gate far too soon, and I told Grace that anytime she comes back to visit, she has a free ride waiting. She smiled. And left. We walked home, went inside, and I was finally able to do what I had wanted to do for the last 30 minutes. I cried. Again.