Honour and Dignity

Live with courage, Act with Justice, Choose with Love

 'Speak up  for those who cannot speak for themselves, and for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly.  Defend the rights of those who are suffering and in need.'  Proverbs 31

A couple of years ago, I helped my then 19-year-old son move all of his stuff out of his first apartment and back home for a brief stay before he purchased his own place.   The 'Honkin’ He-man Truck', as I aptly call my husband’s ridiculously large Dodge Ram, was filled stem to stern with all of the typical belongings of a young man making his way in the world.  We were talking about why he was leaving the house he had shared for the past year with four other 19- and 20-year-old men.  I think it had only taken about four months for the allure of this first “home away from home” to wear off.  

I was troubled as I helped him pack.  The house had deteriorated considerably over the course of the year, each room in its own unique state of disarray and chaos.   What troubled me, on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, was the fact that most of these kids were still recuperating from last night’s party and one was obviously still high with the earthy smell of marijuana pouring out of his room.   Drugs and alcohol were definitely around in my day but the number of kids using drugs on a daily basis has skyrocketed.  It has become a favoured way of coping with the stress of the world.   My son lamented, “The world is not a great place, Mom.”  I know this to be true at 50 years of age, but this was not my reality at 19. 

The world has been pushing the envelope of decency for many years now and our kids are suffering as a result.  Their souls have been pummeled with an onslaught of all that is unwholesome and indecent.  We ushered this new boundary-free era into our homes.  It slipped in almost imperceptibly with the flat-screen TVs, laptop computers, handheld devices, and smart phones.  It crept in under the guise of progress and information technology.  It all happened so fast that my generation, the parents of these computer-era kids, had no idea how to navigate this new and dangerous territory let alone police it.

  But the state of today’s children and young adults weighs heavily on my mind.  In twenty five years of practising medicine, never have I seen so many depressed and anxious teenagers.  Never before have I written so many prescriptions for psychiatric medications for people under the age of 18 and never before have I seen the use of illicit drugs as almost commonplace among those teens who are trying to cope.  Frankly, those of us on the front lines of the medical system in this country cannot keep up.

I am not an expert but doesn't the ailing mental health of our young people indicate a much deeper and more pervasive problem?  Isn't their suffering a symptom of something sinister and dark that has permeated our society and infiltrated our communities?  Or is it just the lack of focus on those human qualities and characteristics that make us feel good about ourselves, that make our communities co-hesive and strong and allow our children to feel like they are a part of something good, something worth believing in, something bigger than themselves?

I'll take a stab at it:  how about honour and dignity, compassion and decency?

Today we buried a young Canadian.  He was standing on guard and unarmed when he was  killed.   He represented all of these characteristics.  I think that is why his death is so collectively painful; there is so little evidence that these qualities thrive anywhere in our world right now.  Losing this soldier who represented youth, vitality, honour, dignity, compassion and decency stabs us where it pains the most:  our souls.

Nathan Cirillo was a young and decent man and a loving father.

In March of 2012, I had the pleasure of meeting another young father, like Nathan.  His name was Ntate Senekale.   I sat on the porch of a foster home high up in the mountains of Lesotho.  I had traveled most of the day to get to this remote village.  The scenery was breathtaking, as usual, with fall colours settling in on mountaintops and summer crops maturing in valleys.  The rough, paved road climbed endlessly, cutting through shimmering fields and golden peaks.  We left the van at the side of the road and climbed to a cinder block bungalow, part of a cluster of buildings.  An old church sat adjacent to the lane way.  A garden was nestled to one side and beyond the compound was a beautiful field with the sun setting just above a line of trees;  a magical place. 

This is the home to three AIDS  orphans and their foster parents and one of the homes that Bracelet of Hope supports.   Lerato was 11 at the time.  Her mother was mentally ill and suffered from an untreated seizure disorder.  Hlompho, age 6, lost both of his parents to AIDS.  He was cared for by an abusive uncle and then an aging grandfather.  At four, he was still not toilet trained, a fact which prompted the local church to move him to this home.   Monthethe was also six.  Her father, Ntate Senekale, was dying of AIDS and her mother left when the illness took his sight. 

Ntate Senekale was 35 years old.  He was severely wasted and frail.  He leaned forward on a cane and stared into space through colourless eyes.  In the advanced stages of HIV, a virus infects the back of the eye, destroying the retina.  Vision deteriorates rapidly and blindness settles in within weeks.  Before the dawn of HIV medications, I would send patients like him to a specialist in Toronto who could delay the onset of blindness by repeatedly injecting the eyeball with an anti-viral medication.  Unspeakable suffering. 

Ntate Senekale’s  lived in a shack not far from this foster home.  He spent most of his time standing in this compound trying to maintain his relationship with his daughter, Monthethe. He stood as if on guard, watching over her. I sat on the porch, a little weary from the journey, and watched as the foster father, Ntate Ntabejane, approached Ntate Senekale.  He placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on his hand, a gesture of love and compassion.  The foster parents of this home loved this man.  They gently cared for him as they dedicated their lives to caring for his child.

Ntate Senekali was a young and decent man and a loving father.

Nathan Cirello had dedicated his life to the Canadian Military which meant defending both our rights as Canadians and the rights of the most desperate in the world.

Ntate  Senekale and Monthethe

Decency and compassion still exist.  I think they may exist in abundance.  They are overshadowed and hidden by all of the indecency that constantly invades our consciousness and darkens our souls.  The same indecency and darkness that fills our children with hopelessness and fear.   I am glad we all stood up and honoured our fallen soldier today.  I am glad my children had the opportunity to witness his young life and his decency.  I am glad, that for even a short period of time, his life and his decency took centre stage in our hearts, our minds and our homes.  

Markus and Nathan Cirillo
'Sheep of Your own flock.  Lambs of Your own fold'

Anne-Marie Zajdlik MD CCFP O. Ont.
Founder of Bracelet of Hope
Braceletofhope.ca

Beautiful Makhauta

Makhauta:  October 21, 2014, Lesotho, Africa

This past weekend, one of my long surviving patients past away.  I loved him.   I found out about his passing this morning as I was starting a very busy office.  I sat at my desk, staring out the window, a mountain of work ahead of me, wondering how I would be able to tend to the needs of my patients today.  How would I pick myself up and push on with this aching heart?  I wish I could tell you his story, tell you the reasons why we loved him so much.  I wish I could tell you how he made us laugh and what nickname I used for him.  I wish I could tell you about the burdens he carried.  I wish I could help you understand how the world had broken him over and over again and how he just kept coming back, standing up straight in the face of it all.  I wish, in a strange way, you could understand how he made me feel each time I met with him.  He loved me too.  I remember the twinkle in his eye and the mischievous way he would tease me about being straight and how he would take advantage if he had been straight too.  Healing in the doctor patient relationship happens best when it is rooted in respect and love.

I can't remember how many years I took care of him or how many illnesses we conquered together.  He lived much longer than he should have.  I like to think that it was, in part, because of the amazing team of people who watched over  him all these years.  We stood with him on the front lines of the war against HIV.   We fought together.  

By mid-afternoon, heavy fatigue settled in.  It would have been much healthier if I had headed home to grieve, at least for a day.  I was reminded by one of my medical partners this morning that we are trained to keep moving, healthy or not, there is no room to grieve.  Then, this email arrived with this beautiful picture of Makhauta, taken in Lesotho earlier in the day by Philip Maher.  Can you pause for a moment and study her stunning face and incredible smile?  When I look into her eyes I see life.  I see joy and a comfortable confidence.  

Makhauta is only 13.  She lives on a mountain in Lesotho, in a foster home with her biological brothers and three other foster children.  Her grandmother takes care of them all and Bracelet of Hope supports the entire foster home.   Makhauta was born with HIV; it is a disease that does not discriminate, whether you are an aging gay man or an adolescent, young woman.  Luckily, the medications now available to treat HIV do not discriminate either.  They work just as effectively for my patients here as they do for those infected everywhere in the world.

New research shows  that with the powerful medications now available to treat HIV, a person who begins treatment in their twenties can live a normal life expectancy as long as they continue these medications for life and as long as they have regular medical follow up.  Research also shows that while on effective treatment, it is almost impossible for an HIV infected person to transmit the virus.  Pregnant woman on these medications will not transmit the virus to their newborn babies.  

And all it takes for most newly infected people, is one pill, once a day.

Makhauta's mother did not have access to these medications.  Both of Makhauta's parents died before she was five.  Last year Makhauta was dying too.  Although she was on treatment that was once effective, she developed resistance to one of the key medications needed to keep the virus in check.  There were no other options left for her in her country.  I am not going to tell you how she received the medication that is now allowing her to live and thrive.  Suffice it to say, that each time Bracelet of Hope sends another team of people to Lesotho, Makhauta gets what she needs.  

Can you pause for another moment and look at her beautiful eyes?  She exudes joy and life and freedom.  She makes her world a much better place.  She  makes it possible  for me to keep standing on the front line of that battle against HIV, even though, today, there is one less soldier in our ranks.  

A new clinic in Lesotho will treat 10,000 people, many of them children like Makhauta. I will grieve tonight but tomorrow I will be grateful.  Grateful  for the long life  my patient lived and grateful for the thousands of people who will receive that same opportunity because of the work we do.....it is a vision well worth fighting for.

Farewell my friend.  It was a pleasure knowing you.

braceletofhope.ca

The Fatherless:
Will the world allow for more children to be orphaned by AIDS?

"If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless knowing that I had the power to help, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint." Job 31: 16-19

Sounds pretty extreme. A man named Job wrote this.  He was man of very high moral and ethical standards.   It's kind of and eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth comment, fairly typical of his time.   He was under great duress and suffering.  He wondered why God had allowed the horrific losses in his life to occur  given that he was such a righteous and just man.  It's a long story but suffice it to say, Job understood how important justice for the oppressed was, especially justice for widows and orphans.  He had lived a life that focused great efforts towards upholding that justice.

Justice:  I like that word.  It was never a part of my vocabulary until I witnessed the devastating effects of injustice.  Justice is the conformity to moral rightness in action and attitude.  It is the upholding of what is just and fair.  In the gap between justice and injustice falls the poorest in the world;  those that do without the basic necessities of life in a world where the most affluent generation in history lives, breathes, consumes and plays.  En mass, that generation, of which I am a member, has kept it's bread to itself.  It has denied the desperate needs of more than 2 billion impoverished people who live on less than $2 a day.  It has developed  the power to help but uses that power to help itself, not those in greatest need.

In the summer of 2006, I held the hand of an 8 year old while he suffocated to death from the combined effects of HIV and Tuberculosis.  His name was Lefa.  He died because of where he was born.  He died because of a complicated and messy century-long history of colonialism, slavery and oppression that left his country too resource poor to provide him with a public health system that could have prevented the spread of the disease and a health care system that could have treated him before his disease reached it's end stage.  He died because of the greed, apathy and neglect of people of power, wealth and influence; people who saw fit to raise their hands against the fatherless.  Their are now 18 million who are fatherless in sub Saharan Africa.  Eighteen million AIDS orphans and many of them will die just like Lefa did.

I don't know, but the way I see it, incapacitating the wealthy, corrupt and oppressing powers that reek havoc in our world by disabling them at their shoulder joints doesn't sound like an unreasonable consequence.  Kind of grisly but it would do the trick.

Amputating the limbs of unjust people is obviously not the answer.

Day 1 in Lesotho:  The 'ordinary' people on the Bracelet of Hope Team

 In Sesotho, Karabow means, "the answer".  I believe there is an answer and that answer  is you and me.  We have the power as ordinary citizens to correct injustice.  Good and ordinary people who, as individuals have very little power but collectively can do the impossible.  And that is just what we are doing.  I watched Lefa and many other children in Lesotho die.  Now, I have the privilege to watch as many other children thrive.

It is good and right and just.

Makhauta

Karabelo and Hlompho

My Good Samaritans

Rob Butler, Jim Wadleigh, Ann Wadleigh, Tracey McGrath, Ed Gal, Noma Vales

This morning a team of amazing people left for Lesotho.  They are Dr. Rob Butler, Jim Wadleigh, Anne Wadleigh, Tracey McGrath, Ed Gal, and Noma Vales.  Philip Maher took this shot at Pearson International.  They are just about to fly out of JFK in New York.  It will take them 16 hours to arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa and from there they will drive into Lesotho.  Rob, Jim and Noma will lead a group of 30 business people in Lesotho providing business education and encouraging the development of skills in growing small businesses.  Ann is a social worker.  She will spend her time focusing on the foster homes and the AIDS orphans that Bracelet of Hope supports.  Tracey has loaded six suitcases full of clothing, toys, school supplies and toiletries for the kids.  She has the task of interfacing with all of our partners in Lesotho who will counsel and support Bracelet of Hope as we move forward with the development of an AIDS treatment facility in the country.  Ed is our media expert.  He will be capturing images and videos that we will be using to create our new website and to launch our massive crowdfunding campaign.  Phil will use his talents as a photographer.  He will bring home thousands of images of the beautiful Basotho people and the beautiful country they live in.

They are my Good Samaritans along with so many others who have travelled to Lesotho, supported us financially, given their gifts and talents to our efforts and prayed for One Country AIDS free.  They are helping us as we shoulder the burdens of the people we love in Lesotho.

I wish them safety and success.

Anne-Marie

This is my Religion

I had the privilege of touring a beautiful art gallery in Europe a few weeks ago.  I am not big into galleries or museums, or so I thought.  I could never reconcile my love for history with my avoidance of museums.  This gallery was different.  Brightly lit from windows on all walls with skylights perched in arched, high ceilings;  this building was magnificent.  The art was displayed in full view with patrons lingering an unobstructed, arms length away.  I was moved by so many pieces but I stood transfixed in front of this one. 

This is Aime Morot's rendering of the Le Bon Samaritain.   The Good Samaritan;  a timeless, biblical story that we all know.  A man was walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  It's a dangerous road.  He is mugged by robbers, stripped naked and left for dead in a ditch.  First a religious leader and then a man from a 'priestly' family saw the man but intentionally past on the other side.  Then a man from the country of Samaria walked by.  What he did was no small feat.  First he tended to his wounds putting oil on the places where he was hurt and then he heaved him up onto his donkey and walked him to an inn.   The injured man was fully grown.  He would have been dead weight.  I would imagine that the Samaritan would have used all of his strength to load him on his donkey.  It would have taken a tremendous heave and once he was up there, the commitment made, the Samaritan would have had to keep him up there, hoisting the body over his shoulder, perching it over the donkey.  

This doesn't look easy to me.  This was in the middle east.  It was hot, most likely mid-day, the sun beating down.  The Samaritan didn't call 911 and wait for the ambulance to arrive.  He made a conscious decision to sacrifice his time, his strength, his money and his comfort to tend to a perfect stranger, a stranger who was considered an enemy.  

Look at this image.  It is amazing.  The Samaritan had no idea who this man was.  No one would have faulted him for choosing the apathetic option of his predecessors. 

 "It's hot, I am sweaty.  I have my own business to tend to.  There is not enough time.  I am not strong enough or capable enough to do anything anyway.  He is beyond help.  Someone more qualified should do this.  I am inexperienced.  It is not safe.  I can't afford the distraction."

 It is infinitely more comfortable and much easier to do nothing.  But the Samaritan sacrifices all of it:  his wellbeing, his comfort, his time, his energy and then his money.  He not only saved the man's life but he made sure  the man was safe and then he guarded over him.  The whole night.  A deposit at the inn would have been quite enough but do you see what the Samaritan did?  He took full responsibility.  Before he left, he made sure that this vulnerable stranger would be well cared for.  He left his guarantee for complete coverage of all future costs incurred during his recovery.  He took full responsibility.

I love the determination on his face.  It's as if he was totally meant to do this, like he's done it before and given the chance he'd do it again without a second thought.  It's as if he was made for this, designed for this, purposed for this.

Here's the catch:  we are all designed for this.

We are hard wired for good, compassion and courage.  We are fully equipped to do what needs to be done for the good of our neighbours and our fellow man.   We were never created to be so self absorbed, so distracted by the unimportant, so focused on our own comfort and well being.   

Here's the truth:  the suffering in this world is monumental and unimaginable but not insurmountable, never insurmountable.

Can you imagine what our world would be like if we all lived up to this same standard?  What if each one of us used our shoulders to carry the victims and the vulnerable of the world?  Those who are suffering under the weight of grief and loss.  What if we used our collective strength to lift our fellow man out of the ditch and onto the road to recovery and health?