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| During a visit with Jaij Somchit and her son, Anan. |
For decades, Jaij Somchit's life has been centered on caring for her 50-year-old son, Anan, who contracted polio as a two-year-old, which has left him bed-ridden and unable to care for himself. She feeds him, changes his diapers, helps him roll over to prevent sores in the awful heat, applies medicine to the sores she can't prevent, and soothes him when he cries. Though he cannot speak, the two of them have a language of their own, and his smile is worth the most beautiful of conversations. The way she looks at him day after day, with deep tenderness and loving faithfulness, is of God.
The two-room house that the two of them have been living in for many years had all but caved in on itself a few months ago, in desperate need of rebuilding. This has left her living in a tiny room one soi over as her old place is rebuilt. Besides being much hotter (zero airflow gets through the two little windows), it sits below the street level, which means it will surely be filled with water as even worse flooding is anticipated this coming rainy season. The rent is nearly equal to the money she makes in the little she can still work and the money she receives monthly from a local charity. Just today, she told us she ran out of the money that needed to last her until a week from now. Which means she'll skip her doctor appointment because she can't afford the taxi (and refuses to let us help pay), and she'll eat the bare minimum amount to make sure Anan gets enough (she did finally concede that we could bring over leftover food from all that we cook this week).
We go to give Anan a bath twice a week, because the "shower" at their new place is an outdoor faucet down the hallway that is shared by four other families. To clean him, two of us load him on a mat and carry him down to the faucet, where we try to bathe him with as much dignity and love as possible as people walk by to enter their rooms, or come to clean their dinner dishes, give a bath to their children, do their laundry. We always wash his hair twice-- partly because he doesn't get so many baths, and partly because the smile and giggles he gives us in return are often the best part of our day! Being seventy years old and almost legally blind, Jaij could clearly not do this herself. And it's no big deal for us. I mean, how often do we get to give Jesus a bath??
But Jaij is always so, so grateful. She is constantly sending us home with delicious fruit-- from the little she has, as she herself just scrapes by. If she could only grasp that she gives us so much more than we could ever give her. She is a person whom I held in the front of my mind all of Lent as I tried to cultivate in my heart a deeper concern for the other (inspired by Pope Benedict's Message for Lent 2012, which is relevant year-round: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20111103_lent-2012_en.html)-- because her whole life is a look of concern on another. All is concern for Anan: How will the heat affect him? The flooding? Does he have enough food? If I go to the hospital to treat my aching back, will he be ok alone? And she constantly repeats the question that has dominated her thoughts for years, "What will he do if I die? Who will care for him?"
In his message, Pope Benedict writes: "Humbleness of heart and the personal experience of suffering can awaken within us a sense of compassion and empathy... We can then understand the beatitude of “those who mourn” (Mt 5:5), those who in effect are capable of looking beyond themselves and feeling compassion for the suffering of others. Reaching out to others and opening our hearts to their needs can become an opportunity for salvation and blessedness." Jaij's witness continually calls me to try to live this kind of compassion in my life, too. She calls me to salvation and blessedness for sure. I'm working on learning to express that to her in Thai :)
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