they were laughing and singing, but I could not hear their voices. It was as if the sound of life had been turned off.
I did not want to walk home. Not alone. It was a long way back. Wasn’t it? How far was it exactly between school and home? It seemed a lifetime ago when I could walk there and back without a thought about the distance. Now it consumed me.
I managed to make it to our hut and sat down on a small stool. There was homework to do. There were chores. There were games to be played.
Yet I sat there and sat there, thinking to myself that the only safe thing in the world was for me to stay right there.
Grandmother sat down next to me. She put her arm around me and did not say anything for a while. She did not need to. Some people understand with words. Others just by being there. I felt relieved she was at my side, even though I was not sure how to communicate my gratitude to her. It seemed to me our hut was all that was left of my world. I did not want to go outside again. Not ever. I simply wanted to stay there. The world outside my front door that I once knew and loved had become a distant planet I would never again be able to reach.
She gently rocked me side to side. It was so gradual, so still, that if you were looking from a distance you would not be able to tell that we were moving.
“God loves you,” she said.
I had heard this before many times during our visits to church each Sunday. Hearing about God’s love is one thing when life is going well, but it seemed to mean something different when things had fallen apart. It was as if someone were trying to build a connection inside me between a loving God and a life of difficulty.
“He has a good plan for your life,” she continued. In my heart, I sensed that what she was saying was right. But any kind of life other than this just felt so impossible in my mind that I wondered how any of what she was saying could come to pass.
“It is not easy to understand when people die. Yet God has made it possible for you to live.” She stopped and waited for me to look up. “You can trust God, Hannah. Even in this.”
Was that really possible? Was the God I heard about in church a real God I could trust despite so many difficulties in my life? And if I were to trust Him, what was I trusting Him for? Was I waiting on Him for a life of only good things and comfort? Or was there something more … something deeper?
“I want to encourage you to let your worries go. To give it all to Him. To leave it all in His hands.”
There was not much I could leave in God’s hands. I had nothing to give. Not any good things anyways. My life was all that I had. And it surprised me to know He wanted it.
“I love you,” she said. “And you should not feel alone.”
She stayed beside me until she sensed it was okay to go. I am not sure how she knew that exactly. But when she stood to go, the timing felt right. She walked out the door. I admired that—her ability to stand up and turn the door handle and to go out into the world.
I reflected on her words—what she said about God and His love for me. I thought about putting my trust in God. I thought about how I did not have many other options. I did not have the strength to do anything on my own. I had no idea how life was supposed to go on.
I was at the end.
In our little hut, on our little property, I folded my small hands. I did not have the energy to ask God for anything. I was not entirely sure that I should. So, I prayed the best I could from my confused heart and worried mind. “Let Your will be done, God,” I said. “Anything that happens, I just let You take control.”
The room felt different in that moment. Fuller. Like there were suddenly many people inside that empty place. I was done with wishing my life could be different. I was powerless to change anything, and yet somehow it seemed like a faint glimmer of hope had returned, like the small sliver of light that had managed to make its way through the crack at the bottom of the door had now filled the room with light.
I stood up. I walked to the door. I reached out my hand. I touched the handle. I took in a breath. I opened the door. A gust of wind blew past me. I felt the sunshine on my face.
And heard my sister Zemira calling out for me to join her in a game of skipping.
CHAPTER
five
I had a hard time deciding.
I wondered if I should gather the courage to commit to a dream that had been growing in my heart. Or should I just dismiss it as the fanciful wishes of a girl in a desperate situation? Dreams are fine. But dreams can be dangerous if we are not sure where they have come from. They can become idols that are not possible to reach, and we can trick ourselves into thinking we are designed for something that we were never meant to achieve. Yet in my heart, right at my very core, I sensed a deep conviction.
I had seen so much suffering. The passing of my parents and my twin sister caused me so much grief, so much worry, that the very thought of talking about it, or even needing to, had completely escaped me.
I could not get my parents back. I could not get my twin sister back. That much I knew. And I had grown wise enough to resist the temptation of wishing for a different past. Still, if I was not to be spared the pain of losing so much, then perhaps I could be used to help spare someone else from losing so much. What could I do to intervene in the life of someone else to spare him or her the grief I had to endure?
Life could have been so different if my parents and sister had lived, like the way a football game changes in a close match when the ball strikes the post and goes in instead of bouncing back. And if I was honest, I knew that medical intervention could have saved them. My sister and parents would have still been there had there been medical help and healthy food.
I stood outside our hut looking out at the distant horizon, at that place far away where the land meets the sky. Thinking. Praying. Wondering.
Forget it! This is impossible!
But it is on my heart.
So what? Look at your schooling.
I can accomplish it.
You will never make it.
Yes, I will. I refuse to believe that it cannot be done.
You will eventually give up.
No. I will not. I will not dishonour them. I have the faith to believe the impossible.
And how will this happen exactly? … You see. You don’t know.
I don’t have to know. I have faith.
I did not want to see past my own hurts. I did not want to pretend they did not exist. I wanted to use them. I wanted to use the experiences I had to pass through for the benefit of others. I could not undo what had been done. I could not help my own past. Neither could I help the pasts of others. But what about the future?
What if I could be used to help others like me? What if I could help prevent their pain? What if there was a way that I could be used to intervene in people’s lives, children’s lives, to prevent them from having to go through what I went through? What would they need? How could I serve them?
And it was at that moment that I decided I wanted to become a doctor.
Part of me wanted to believe against all odds that this dream would become reality. That I could become a doctor. That I could break free from the shackles of poverty to do for others what was not done for me.
But the other part of me was afraid to believe. Afraid that a poor girl without parents or money would not have any chance to go to school. I was afraid of the hard work involved and that I would only prove to myself I was a failure. If I chased this dream and it did not work, I would never again have the luxury of escaping my life through the belief that dreams could come true.
These two voices collided inside my head.
I can do it. I can become a doctor. I can learn skills to heal the sick.
Impossible.