Brave.

Ok so after our little tour of the African savannah this weekend, today we got back to real life (or at least our real life for these 3 weeks). We took the bus back to the Red Cross Children's Hospital for 9am and headed to the wards with toys as usual but this time I was greeted with something a little different than last week. One of our little buddies on the cancer ward from last week, Simwamkele, who was the ring leader of all the children and a little diva with a personality the size of Africa, was laying in bed. She motioned me in to the room to her bed and looked absolutely exhausted. The little girl who was running the duck, duck, goose circle last week was now barely even able to speak. She asked me to get a book to read her and when I returned she grew tired from just listening after only one chapter. She asked me to stop reading and just sit with her and said so quietly "don't go." I didn't. She tried to sip some water but it turned out to be a bad idea.. seconds later I was rubbing her back as she was getting sick.

As she laid back down she put out a hand and asked for mine. I only needed my thumb to rub her tiny hand and as I began to she started to rub my hand. I don't know who was holding onto whose hand but I think it was an equal need from both of us. As she drifted off to sleep she whispered again "don't leave" and that's exactly what I did. For the next 4 hours I just sat next to her bed and thought. I thought about my friend who died from leukemia when she was only a year younger than Simwamkele, I thought about how happy this little girl was that her mom was coming to her tomorrow and then I saw it... She had an award hanging next to her bed.. "the Brave award." I realized in this moment that these children are braver than I have ever had to be and they were so young. To this day when I get sick, my first reaction is to call my mom (Hi Mom) no matter what time of day it is (sorry mom... and dad heh) and this girl hadn't seen her mom in who knows how long and was sick with cancer.

Today really put some things into perspective. The first couple of days the children were all running around and happy and today one of the most active children could barely move. It really showed the true struggle of what these children are going through and showed me how strong they really are.