ESTA ES SU CASA--FEBRUARY 2014
PASHTUNWALI
The new partnership of “The Beacon” and “St. Louis Public Radio News” kindly published my January “letter from Honduras”:
I thought I was a goner. NOT a “lone survivor.” Even Chemo was crying, sobbing at my bedside as I prayed for God’s mercy. But I wasn’t quite dead yet. I had had a dizzy spell, so light-headed, so disoriented I could only stand up by clinging to the wall, the office door, the table, another door, till I collapsed in my bed, guided there by Chemo. It was only 8:00 in the morning, and I thought I was having a stroke!
We had returned the day before from a week in Tegucigalpa, and I had already eaten twice at Chemo’s grandma Natalia’s house, supper last night and breakfast this morning. After the dainties of the city, I thought I had gotten back to basics, yet the food maybe was a little...funny. Because when I struggled to sit up in my bed, with Chemo’s help, my head still spinning, thinking to take a couple aspirin (I heard that somewhere), I suddenly shuddered. Grabbing the wastebasket and dumping its contents on the floor, I threw up. Man, I threw up to beat the band, over and over, till I thought I was done, and then threw up some more. (Sorry to drag you through this!) I recognized the remnants of Natalia’s meals. I lay back down, scared to death; an hour later, I tried it again, sitting up, with the same result; and at least 2 or 3 more times, each time thinking I was “better,” but my body wasn’t letting me off the hook. Finally, my stomach registered “EMPTY” but shook me with a few more retches, just to be sure.
That’s when I asked Chemo to pray with me; that’s when he broke into those heart-rending sobs. Alerted by Chemo, Elvis and Dora were quickly on the case. Dora prepared me a potion, Elvis “massaged” me. I threw up the juice, and when Elvis, for his finishing move, reached under and around me and gave a sudden jerk! to get the “patibulum up front,” whatever the heck that move was, I thought he broke my back. I wiggled my toes and kept wiggling them, to be sure I wasn’t crippled. This was the first positive sign of the day: at least I would die a paraplegic!
Yet this was my “pashtunwali,” the native term for the care Marcus Lutrell received from his Afghan hosts after the Taliban had wiped out all his companions. Indeed, Dora later prepared me a simple soup that did stay down and tasted so good. And Elvis kept everybody calm. Everyone was treating me with such lovingkindness. We all had theories on what was wrong with me, dizziness, vomiting.... Now don’t get ahead of me here, because maybe you have figured out something that I did not think of until Dr. Meme made a very welcome house call later in the afternoon and labeled it “vertigo.” I was...seasick. Jimmy Stewart flashed in my mind, climbing the bell tower in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” probably because I had just heard that critics voted it best movie ever. I had to smile, it was so simple. As the Scarecrow told Dorothy, I should have thought of it myself! But when you’re up to your eyeballs in your own spew, you lose perspective.
Still, I knew I had to get a more thorough diagnosis from my cardiologist in Tegucigalpa, Dr. Bayardo Pagoada, who has degrees from Tokyo and Rome. I had not seen him since 2007, when I brought Chemo to him. With only a stethoscope, he quickly diagnosed the precarious condition of Chemo’s heart, but referred us to his colleague Dr. Karla Andino, a PEDIATRIC cardiologist. She hooked us up with the Brigada, and the rest is history.
Once I adopted Chemo, I didn’t go back to Dr. Bayardo because I couldn’t afford to. I figured, every time I go he checks me out and says I’m OK, and then charges an arm and a leg for the visit, so I’ll wait till I’m sick, then I’ll go. I spent all my time and money on Chemo (and our extended family!) for the past seven years. Well, my near-death experience convinced me, now was the time! Of course, I can afford it even less now, but I sharpened up my credit cards and prayed Bank of America wouldn’t notice.
The good doctor--and he is very good, so kind and professional, and with a light dusting now of gray hair, a fatherly figure--welcomed me back, and was so pleased with Chemo, twice the size since he saw him last, including a stubbly mustache.
After two days of tests--chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, blood work, etc.--he pronounced my heart “stable,” no different, really, from 2007, just a little larger due, no doubt, to my heavier weight; and my cholesterol was up. So I didn’t have a stroke, I probably won’t have one, it WAS the food, I was “normal,” and it only cost about $500 to find that out! Now, he did give Chemo a check-up, too, at no additional cost, and suggested an adjustment in his meds. As they say, some things money can’t buy.
When I went to make a new appointment for July, the young secretary Susana was wiping away tears. She had just gotten the news that her grandmother had died. I sympathized all I could, and the next day I dropped off a little book of “Prayers for Young Women” for her that I found at a religious bookstore. She of course had already gone to be with her family.
As I said above, we had just been in Tegucigalpa only a week before this emergency visit. That trip was full of “business”: renewing my residency visa for another year, renewing my driver’s license (now including a “psychological” test!), dental check-ups for me and Chemo (look, ma! no cavities!), Mema’s birthday (64), and, best of all, Mema and Elio’s daughter Felixsa pronouncing her final vows as a nun after 17 years of study and sacrifice, most of it in Spain.
The vow ceremony would be in the Basilica of Suyapa, the biggest church in Honduras, one of the biggest in the world, in fact, at a regularly scheduled Sunday Mass, January 12. As Elio joked, “We invited 1500 of our closest friends!”) But the whole crowd got involved, so outgoing, well-spoken, and self-effacing is Felixsa, lit up, you might say, by the Holy Spirit. We sang, we applauded, we dropped to our knees to pray for Felixsa’s fidelity to her vocation. You know, the colonia of Suyapa is the most dangerous in the whole city, so I only carried a handful of Lempiras, certainly not my brand-new ID or license or any credit cards--but I was not going to leave my camera behind at the hotel. I knew that the pictures by Felixsa’s brother Elio Jr.--a professional photographer--would be infinitely better than my own, but I wanted to “see” for myself. And it paid off, since I could give Elio and Mema copies when Chemo and I suddenly found ourselves back in Tegus for the Bayardo visit.
Felixsa’s “missionary” work will be right here in Honduras, teaching, preaching, giving retreats, training other young sisters, tending to the needs of the poor. I’m already pestering Elio and Mema to get me into some of the events, a schedule they are more than happy to explore.
My recovery was promising enough that I turned to Chemo and asked if he was ready for yet another trip, this time to Morazan for our annual “vacation” with Fermin and his family. “Let’s go now!” he pleads, meaning directly from Tegucigalpa. Tempting as that was, I knew we needed at least a day in Las Vegas to “freshen up” and pay some bills at the various “pulperias” where I have running tabs.
So we were a few days behind schedule, but still in time for the 87th birthday of Maria’s father Antonio and the 20th birthday of Maria and Fermin’s son Eduard, who has become Chemo’s best friend. Both celebrations were based on the principle: all you can eat!
In “Lone Survivor” and in religious life, you see the power of love to transform ordinary people into heroes who transcend their earthly roots. Of course, “Lone Survivor” makes my little episode look like a bubble-bath, and Felixsa’s enthusiasm had me in tears, but you do see how heroic, too, are the ones who wait hopefully to assist and support those who swear their lives to serving others.
That’s where you come in. I’m sure no hero, but you sure are my “pashtunwali”! I
apologize for not chronicling my health crisis on FACEBOOK and Yahoo!, but I simply did not have the strength, and then when I did, well, let’s just say that all your prayers, good wishes, and kind thoughts had already been answered, even though you didn’t even know I was counting on you. Anonymous healing. Thank you forever.
Love, Miguel
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