A Tale of Two Tragedies
September 25,2004
One week ago today, the funeral of our dear little Immacula Ilmo (at the orphanage) coincided with the flood that destroyed the town of Gonnaives, in Haiti. I only now have the courage to write about both.
Immacula had been with us since she was a small child. Her mother and her sister had died of AIDS, and Immacula was also infected with that dreaded virus. She was a child who never thrived and always had emerging health problems which she fought with full force. In her young years, when the single drug AZT was recommended for AIDS treatment, we started her on it. Some years later, the recommendation of using a single drug was withdrawn and we started Immacula on the newly recommended triple therapy, which we continued to her death. Even though the medicines only helped her in a moderate way, they did help her survive a good dozen years longer than she would have otherwise. Those dozen years were truly “good”, in fact precious, to us. They were obviously precious to her as well. Many of our staff kept vigil at her bedside during her final weeks of decline, at which time Immacula told Adele that she knew she was dying, but she really wished she could live.
Of the hundreds of children who are with us, some remain anonymous to me since I mostly am with them when they are crowded together at mass or community gatherings. But many enter clearly into my mind and heart because of endearing moments. In Immacula’s case, I remember vividly a program the children put on one Christmas many years ago, and how Susana had coaxed the wee Immacula to sing for us with her deep, lusty voice. She took the microphone and sang a very sweet song about peace. The tune was haunting, and the chorus ended with the words “and that’s when peace will return to us.” I remember it especially well because Immacula was herself so moved by the song that she started to cry, and Susana had to come and take her away from the microphone in a warm embrace.
During Immacula’s last days, another tragedy was unfolding, unknown to us. As Immacula’s soul was in the throws of releasing its body, a storm named Jeanne was in the throws of releasing her stores of water onto the mountains above Gonnaives. The separations completed, Jeanne sought the path to the sea, as Immacula’s soul sought the path to heaven. Now Immacula was dead, to our great sorrow, and having had the children pray over her body, her funeral was prepared with care. We processed from the small chapel to the altar near the cemetery, just when, far away from us, the waters of Jeanne raced down the mountain crevices in their own frenzied procession. I blessed her body with the holy water, saying, “as Immacula died with Christ in the waters of Baptism, may she now share with Him the joy of the resurrection.” As I pronounced these words, non-baptismal waters of destruction descended upon the unaware people of Gonnaives.
“Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have Mercy”. Our words of pleading also filled the frantic streets of Gonnaives as the floodwaters roared.
As I placed the gifts on the altar to offer them in sacrifice, another priest was facing his last sacrifice. Fr. Olivier was a priest of the Order called “Oblates of Mary Immaculate.”
At 80 years old, this Frenchman had served most of his life as a foreign missionary. He had served in the violent lands of Cambodia and Laos over 40 years ago. He faced a firing squad once, and was given a last-second miraculous reprieve. He also survived prison, and a grenade explosion. For the past 40 years he worked in Gonnaives, taking care of lepers. Now in his golden years, he lived on the property of the Missionaries of Charity, the sisters of Mother Theresa, offering mass and caring for the sick and for the Sisters. Our dear friend Sister Abha, who had opened the home for the dying in Port-au-Prince (with Mother Theresa herself) some 25 years ago, was recently transferred from Port to Gonnaives. An old leper man with one leg lived with Fr Olivier in his little house, and Sister Abha attended to them often. As the floodwaters poured onto the property, the sick were rushed from the home to the chapel, which was on the highest ground. The Sisters returned to the convent, trying to reach Fr Olivier on the way, but could not approach his house because of the torrents. In their convent, the flood waters also began to rise so fast, they soon poured into the house through the windows.
“May the Lord accept this sacrifice of our hands, to the praise and Glory of God’s name, for our good and the good of all the Church.” Our mass continued. The waters of the flood entered the house of Fr Olivier, the old man with one leg had no strength to help him. The life of this remarkable priest came to its end, as I held the precious bread high in the air above Immacula’s body. “This is my Body, which is given up for you.”
The consecration completed, I elevated the body and blood of Christ above the altar, while the sisters were climbing frantically on their dining room table, trying to stay above the waters, their white sauri’s already stained by dark mud. The waters rose, they climbed as high as they could but could not escape the rising waters. They prepared themselves, fearfully, for death. Immacula’s mass continued. “Deliver us O Lord from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. Keep us free from sin and protect us in all anxiety, as we await in joyful hope the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
One by one, the children filed passed Immacula’s body. “Body of Christ.” “Amen.” Wide eyes. No tears yet. The children have a way of shielding themselves from the harsh realities that already had marked their young and tender lives.
By a merciful act of God, as the Sisters were about to drown, their perimeter wall was crushed by the waters and carried away in pieces. The water level in the convent compound lowered immediately by two feet, equalizing with the water level on the open streets. The water had dropped from eight feet to six. The Sisters were safe on their table. The waters rose no higher in their home.
“The mass is ended, go in peace.”
Now we processed to the cemetery. The choir of children was singing. We laid Immacula in her grave and the children could contain themselves no longer. They had known Immacula for years and loved her as a dear friend, and dreadful wailing and frantic cries began to fill the air from scores of children. At once, Sarah, Gena, Sister Lorraine, Adele, Sister Ancie and so many others gathered as many children in their arms as they could. It was dreadful. Who could not weep at the sound, the sight, the pain. But the wailing and screaming was much louder and tormented in Gonnaives, for there was no solid ground on which anyone could stand, to gather the panic-sticken drowning into their arms, as children were washed cruelly away from their mothers to their deaths, and humble homes were uplifted and destroyed, and dead horses and cows and grandmothers and uncles floated in the mud toward the sea. “In paridisum perducant te angeli…” “May the angels lead you into paradise, may the martyrs come to welcome you on your way…” A prayer for two thousand desperate souls.
I had an idea. I would seek out the crying children one by one. I would place into their hands the holy water font, and ask them to bless the grave. One by one they took it. They approached the grave with heavy sobs, but somehow found peace and some power in this ritual. They were marking Immacula’s grave with holy water, an outward sign of God’s grace. They were marking the grave with their tears, an outward sign of their grace. Slowly the level of wailing descended.
And slowly the waters descended in Gonnaives.
When I heard from the Sisters in Port au Prince what happened in Gonnaives, we headed there at once. We would go in solidarity, and to show our friendship and care, and to see what help we could offer. We would go with our friend and colleague Phadoul, to help him search for his mother and brothers and sisters who lived in Gonnaives.
Five hours of terrible roads. We arrived after sunset. To get into the city we had to drive through a lake that had once been rice fields. Our headlights completely underwater, only darkness and dark waters were before us, waters which rose to our doors. Two guides stood on our sideboards, guiding us along so we would not fall off the underwater road, as had many overturned trucks and public busses which lay at our right and our left, like toppled buoys marking the 2 kilometer crossing. Gonnaives itself was dark and desolate and in ruins. There were no signs of people, at least not at night. We plowed through the waters, the garbage, the broken city until we arrived at the Sisters. They came out to greet us…muddy but happy to see friends, recounting in detail their ordeal. It was late….everything covered with mud, we had no choice but to sleep in the truck on the only clear patch of land we could find.
In the morning we had mass together, very early. A mass of thanksgiving, a mass for the victims, a mass begging for help. After mass, the Sisters gave us canned breakfast from army rations which they had, and eggs and bread. We made lists of what would be needed from Port-au-Prince, and we went off to the city again to find Phadoul’s family.
Wandering through the streets in water to our waist, as dead puppies floated by, and people washed muddy clothes in the even muddier water that engulfed us, it would be impossible to describe the extent of the disaster. Everything was destroyed to a height of 15 feet. Electric lines dipped in the waters around us. People greeted us from the roofs on which they were huddled together with whatever belongings they could salvage, on roofs which had saved their lives, and called down to us “be careful the white man doesn’t fall into the canals. He doesn’t know where they are on the side of the road. He is wet enough.”
“Thank you! Ki gen nou ye? How are you?”
“Nou pa pi mal….we are not bad. When you still have your life you have everything.”
While the roads were filled with underwater garbage, furniture and rocks, the courtyards were filled with underwater mud. As we entered the courtyard of the house of Phadoul’s mother, our sandals were sucked off by the deep mud with every step. The body of an old woman was immediately apparent, buried face down in the mud. We uncovered enough mud from her enough to know it was not Phadoul’s mom, and we stopped to pray for her. We could not raise her body simply because if we did there was absolutely no place to put her. And we would never have been able to carry her back through the waters, two miles back to the truck. We had news that Phadoul’s mother had been taken to a friend’s house at high ground, and that she was alright. We trudged further into the city until we found the home of Phadoul’s brothers and their families. Belongings pile high on the roof that had saved them, drying in the sun, the family began the arduous task of digging 6 feet of mud out of their house.
With gratitude to God for the safety of the Sisters and Phadoul’s family, moved by the concern for us shown by many strangers from their rooftops, inspired by the great spirit shown by those grateful for life and already starting to reshape their lives, we headed back to Port au Prince so that we could start organizing serious help. The same help we continue to offer in Thiote since the terrible floods of last May. Everything is needed. Clothes, drinking water, cots for sleeping, food, medicine, seeds for replanting, cement for rebuilding, shovels for digging through the mud. Everything is needed, but the day is young…and when you still have your life you have everything.
Fr Rick Frechette