This Is a Love Story

My cognitive abilities are in South Carolina, but those other thoughts, the ones I can’t capture into productivity are miles away these days. I’ve been separated from the people I love most in the world for far too long, and each day I long for the Darien Rainforest more.

When I sit real still, I can still feel the bugs squirming around in their stomachs, eating the babies from the inside out. I can feel the way the parasites pushed through their skin and into my side as held toddlers far too close, hoping, praying, I could take away their pain.

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I went to the Darién Rainforest in Panama four years ago and as I sit here and write this, I realize just how much of my heart I left with those people.

I’ve held dying babies. I’ve tried with feeble words to explain through language barriers how to give their children the medicines the need to survive.

I failed.

I’m in a cold dark loft tonight. As I type, I have Faulkner and Hemmingway sitting on the table beside me.  They’re always nearby when I write. Oh, to have words like those.

But I don’t. This writer comes to you with MacBook and prayer instead of quill pen and talent. After a day of running, driving, being riled up, and frankly making an idiot of myself, it is these quiet moments where I can finally sit.

And breathe.

And realize, once again, that I left such a big piece of my heart with an unnamed child in the middle of the jungle.

Alto Playona, Panama

When I stepped out of the canoe that June day into the village of the Kuna Indians, a little girl took my hand and took me to her sister. The child wore only two-sizes-too-big panties, and I was the first white person she had ever seen.

We were on a mission to bridge the gap between natives who still worshiped the river gods and Americans.

She was heavy--too heavy for a child her size. A small child made heavy because of illness.

Her skin secreted some kind of sweet substance that attracted bees to her. For the remainder of the day I sat there, feebly attempting to make her and myself feel better by feeding her candy and using hand sanitizing wipes to get rid of the bugs and sweat.

I failed her. I didn’t bring life-saving medicine. I didn’t take her back to a hospital in the US. I was barely 19 and at that moment when I put her hand into mine and could feel the weight of death, I changed.

In that moment, I gave a part of myself away to a doomed baby in the middle of the jungle who nobody even cared to name.

She continues to define most of my days when a strong Southern attitude, or mouth, gets me into trouble. She weighs on my mind in futile conversations that seem to go around in circles.

And for that, I’m forever grateful.

A lot of things keep us down to earth. For me, it’s knowing that no matter what the situation is, no matter how bad the day gets, no matter how many times my feelings get hurt, there will always be a part of me that safely stays hidden in the Darién.

There are trinkets throughout my home, tucked away in little corners that would be overlooked by most people. A colored photo from a Panamanian artist when you walk in, a friendship bracelet I wear on bad days and a mola, the traditional handmade dress of the Kuna is tucked in the back of my closet. Only the few who get into my little world will ever hear the full stories behind those items. We guard our prized possessions like that.

Things have changed. My focus is on helping a group of inner city ballerinas these days--something I love more than anything else in the world spare my family--or running a small charity designed on providing the needy with clean underwear.

I’ll sleep easier tonight. The foolish conversations and fumbled topics have dissolved as I look back on the one little unnamed girl who changed my life four years ago.