Where She Belongs

It is absolutely amazing how many lives one group of people can touch.
A small order of Catholic nuns in Fondwa, Haiti who have a clinic and an orphanage, have touched lives of health care professionals, teachers, photographers, Christians, and all others who have met them.

Over the past week, visitors from North Carolina, Indiana and California have called to check on Sister.

It's been quite a week.

This morning, our group gathered for a care conference in the ICU.

The diagnosis is primary hepatoblastoma which has spread along the vena cava, now residing also in the septum and right atrium of Sister's heart. Liver cancer is known to be very aggressive, and by the time one suffers from symptoms, the disease has typically progressed fairly far.

She began feeling very poorly in November.
Who knows when she first felt ill.

Phone calls were made today. Social work was present. The physicians spoke bluntly and were realistic in the prognosis and inability to heal her with surgical intervention. Chemotherapy and radiation have not been successful with advanced illness such as hers. The likelihood of any treatment prolonging her life is poor. The concern is not to prolong or increase her suffering.

She was alert today and understands the diagnosis.

A durable power of health care attorney was signed.

Tears were shed. There was a lot of hugging.

Plane tickets are being purchased and a community very far from Kansas is grieving. 

I'm afraid she will never again see the beauty of her homeland in this life.

When I kissed my Sister friend, the woman who took in my sons and truly gave them a life, who has started us on the road to being a forever family, she squeezed my hand and asked "then, I don't have long?" I confirmed what the oncologist, the cardiologist and the pulmonologist agree on. I told her that her body is fighting hard (her temp was back up to 102 today, she was tachypneic, but maintaining her oxygen concentration), but soon it will be time for her to rest. "What a celebration Jesus must have planned for His daughter's homecoming!"
I didn't quite get it out before I got choked up. 

What a blessing to know this woman and know what she has done for her community of Sisters and for the children of Fondwa and Thom Gateau. When my sons' memories of their homeland begin to fade, I will have beautiful memories to share with them of a Sister so loving and giving that helped us to become a family.

There are still tough days ahead. Many more tears will fall. Prayers will be sent to the Great Physician, who knows the plan that only He understands. In our selfishness, we grieve . . . but, for one so faithful as she, I hope that her journey home is swift. I hope the mountains of Fondwa and the beaches of Jacmel are always visible to her from Heaven's window.

Sometimes it feels like I'm watching from the outside
Sometimes it feels like I'm breathing but am I alive
I won't keep searching for answers that aren't here to find

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

So when the walls come falling down on me
And when I'm lost in the current of a raging sea
I have this blessed assurance holding me.

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

When the earth shakes I wanna be found in You
When the lights fade I wanna be found in You

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

- Where I Belong, Building 429