“You’re not
sick, are you?”
I looked up
at the young girl who had wandered over to stand by me as I watched a group of
manatees munching on low-hanging mangrove limbs. It was Mother’s Day and I
was missing my family. Watching the Florida manatees roll around in the
water kept my mind from feeling so alone. The comical creatures also made me
laugh as they snorted in the water and flapped their tail flukes.
I had not
been paying attention to the girl, but when she spoke, I looked up at her. I
saw that she was thin, pale and wore a bandana over her thin hair. I could see
purple veins in her legs and a scar on her chest that probably had once served
as the port entry for some type of vile chemical that had pulsed through her
veins.
“I’m sorry,
but I have to ask,” she added. “I can’t be around people who are sick.”
The girl
introduced herself as “Becca.” She was 15. She had recently undergone a bone
marrow transplant at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and was trying to regain
her strength. She has HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis), a rare but
potentially fatal blood disorder.
Like me,
Becca loves the manatees. And like me, Becca was looking for a distraction on
Mother’s Day Sunday. She was back home in Florida, staying with her
grandparents while her mother was still in Cincinnati with her sister. Her
sister also has HLH and was still at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
receiving treatment. Becca told me that the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati
is nice and comfortable. That’s where her mother is staying while her sister is
in the hospital.
I assured
Becca that I did not have a cold or feel sick. I asked how she was doing? I asked if she was feeling
stronger? I told her how people in Japan wear masks over their noses and mouths
when they are sick so they won’t spread their germs to others. (We agreed that
everybody should follow the Japanese and wear masks when they are ill.)
Becca just
needed to talk. It was 7 p.m., and she said this was the time of day when she
could go outside. She couldn’t spend time outdoors in the sun.
She talked
about having gone on a school field trip once to the Marine Discovery Center
(MDC), where I currently serve as an eco-tour guide on a part-time basis. She
talked about how much she loves dolphins and manatees and wants to become a
veterinarian some day.
I suggested
that she come to the summer camp for kids at MDC. She shook her head and said
that because of her disease, she can’t be around large groups of people. She
can’t risk picking up a virus and getting sick. Her body is not yet strong
enough to fight germs.
Becca told
me that she had been so sick that she dropped down to 80 pounds in body weight.
But she weighs more now. She feels better. And doctors say she’s “doing better
than expected.” She’s one of the lucky ones and she hopes her sister will be
one of the lucky ones, too.
The thin
teen asked if there was anything she could do at the MDC just to be around
creatures? She said she would feed the fish. She said she would even take care
of files or take out trash. Only thing, she just couldn’t mingle with the
number of kids who would come to the center for summer camp. Besides, she said,
they probably would think they could catch her disease.
“They can’t
catch it from me,” she said.
“And it’s
not cancer,” she added quietly.
Becca and I
stood there for a while in silence, just watching the creatures in the lagoon. She asked
about the scars on the backs of the manatees and I told her that these
slow-moving creatures get struck by boat propellers an average of 15 times
during their life span. They get
injured. They heal. And they move on. The words kind of hung in the air for
both of us.
I’ve made a
habit of walking across the street each Sunday evening to visit the manatees.
They hang out in a little cove near the beach where I attend a 6 o’clock
Episcopal church service. I usually remain there alone to watch the sun sink
over the lagoon. It’s like the Amen at the end of the sermon. It’s like God’s
signature at the conclusion of another day. As many times as I’ve seen it, I’m
always awed by the beauty of the lagoon at sunset. It is as
peaceful a place as any that I know.
I finally told
Becca goodbye and walked back to my car across the street. As I walked, I
thought about this chance encounter with the teen. I also recalled the words in
a book by Pema Chodron in which she says, “Awakeness is found in our pleasure
and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our ...
ordinary everyday lives. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s
always with us.”
The
manatees may have brought us there, but the moment of pause was, indeed, the
teacher for both a girl fighting for her life and a middle-age woman looking
for peace in a time of transition. Each of us had gravitated to the lagoon to let the creatures there
reach out to us when no other human being could. Nature
seems to work that way.
And like the manatees, sometimes we are stricken, but we heal and we
move on.
