For Justice: March 31, 2001

Today is Justice’s birthday. He would have been 7 years old today.

If you’ve been a reader of this blog for a while you know that Justice Sicalo Louis was the first child from Mhlosheni we sponsored as a family. We jumped in at that first sponsorship drive and brought his name and his history home. We talked about Justice at dinner time, put his picture on our refrigerator, and our children knew his face and his name. He was as much a part of our family as a child could be who lived 10,000 miles away.

If you’ve read this blog for a while you also know that Justice died. Like many of the children in that fragile, brittle place Justice succumbed to an onslaught from unseen enemies: asthma, TB, HIV, and malnutrition had been his constant companions since birth.

I met Justice’s mother, Nokuphila, in November. (Read that post here.) She was a pretty, fragile, slender woman who had lost her only child and who had been diagnosed as HIV-positive herself. I wish I could talk to her again today. I wish I could tell her I’m remembering Justice today.

I wish I could reassure her that Justice is running and playing in a place that makes even the beauty of their home in the Shiselweni hills look plain and dull. I don’t know how I would do that, though, without it coming out like tired plastic Christian dogma. I wouldn’t be up to the task. I wish I could stand in his yard again and look at the hills and grass and trees and sky he looked at.

Daunted by all these things I can’t do, I’ll instead do the one thing I can do: I’ll pray. I’ll pray that Justice has been lifted into a Presence I can barely imagine. I’ll pray that Justice has been comforted beyond anything my words or money or attention could ever provide.

I’ll pray that Nokuphila finds healing for her wounded body, and peace for her wounded soul.

I’ll pray that every child, caregiver, administrator, teacher, and servant I met in Mhlosheni finds the strength and resources they need to do their invaluable work. I’ll pray that every man, woman and child in America reads something like this blog and begins to understand that our salvation begins when we serve others, when we provide succor to those who can’t heal themselves.

I’ll also go home today and play with my kids, and tell each of them how much I love them.