What It Means to Have a Family

This past week has really caused me to reflect on family…What is a family? The conventional answer is mom, dad, and kids, right? Well, what about when your parents are dead or worse yet, they’re alive, but simply don’t care about you? Or maybe your dad doesn’t even know you exist and you’ve never even met him and don’t even know his name. This is the case for a lot of kids here…and it’s tough. There are some kids who are fortunate enough to still have a parent in their lives who truly does care about them but for extenuating circumstances (often economic ones) can’t take care of their kids. However, sadly, that’s the exception. Many many of our kids have lost their parents. For some kids, it was a disease or sickness that took their parents away and changed their lives forever. For other kids, they’ve never known their parents…they were abandoned at a hospital, their parents up and left and they were stuck with neighbors or taken in by nuns. And yet for other kids, they have purposely separated themselves from their family…they’ve ran away from home, they've done whatever it takes to escape abusive situations. There are some really sad stories here and after nearly 9 months, I’m really starting to hear them. Since I work in the sponsorship department, it’s not uncommon that a kid comes in and asks for some pertinent information about their past (we have little write-ups on each child)…What was my mom’s name? How did she die? When’s my birthday? I wish I had the answers to their questions…

Besides sponsorship, the other half of my job is communications, which oftentimes means photos…taking photos, organizing the photos we have, and more than anything, searching previous photos to fulfill photo requests. Anyways, this past week, 40-some CDs of photos from our early days (2005-2006) resurfaced with one of our older girls: photos that we didn’t even know existed/had considered lost forever. So we started spending a couple hours each day going through them on my computer. Before we knew it, we’d be sitting in the park with a swarm of 20 kids all watching and laughing as they saw themselves 6 and 7 years ago. We literally went over thousands and thousands of photos. Out of all of them, the photos that most struck me were the family photos. These were either photos of the family at their previous residence before coming here (sometimes even including a parent!) or photos taken at Visitor Days here. And we found some true treasures! I found a photo of one of my oldest girls and her mom who has since passed away…the only photo she has ever seen of them together. I found another photo of one of my girls and her dad who has since disappeared from her life. Can you imagine how much these 1 photos mean to these girls? I feel like we are so used to photos being a part of our lives…our moms scrapbook, our phones have cameras, etc. etc. For many of us, our entire lives from the moment we were born in the hospital are documented with photos. That’s just not the case here. Photos, esp. photos from when these kids were younger, are gold. 

Cristela

Ditania

Erika C

Erika D

Josi

Lucy

On the flip side, as we’re going over these photos, can you picture the other 15+ kids just hoping that a photo of them with a parent or loved one would appear? For a lot of these kids, they will never have a photo with their mom or dad. If they have any image at all of their parents, it’s the one they carry with them in their head.

I say all this not to make anyone feel sorry for the kids here. They are extremely EXTREMELY blessed. But it’s the reality of life here and sometimes it’s easy to forget.  Sometimes it’s easy to keep pushing ahead, esp. as volunteers, without recognizing that this job/life here is intense, it’s painful at times, it’s duro. These kids have become my family now and to realize the heartache that some of them face on a daily basis makes MY heart ache.

However, as I just mentioned, WE are a family here. That was Padre Wasson’s philosophy when he started NPH in Mexico back in 1954 and that continues to be the case to this day.  It’s not uncommon to hear a kid here referring to one of their housemates as their brother or sister; some of them have known and lived with each other since they were babies. Plus lots of our kids have siblings here with them.

On that note, we have a really special project that we do here as volunteers called Proyecto Familiar (I’ve mentioned this before in other blogs). More or less, once a month, each volunteer is assigned a family of siblings and together, we make supper. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it’s about being together. Some siblings here are very close, but there are others that you rarely see together and as you can imagine, when you live within 4 walls with 250+ other people, there’s not often time to be alone as a family and not surrounded by others.

This past Sunday, I did two different Proyecto Familiares. First off, we had Franchesca (one of my girls) and her younger twin sisters, Fernanda and Katery. I knew this one would be a walk in the park, because these siblings are super close and Franchesca is very responsible. Franchesca planned it all and we ended up making ensalada de coditos (pasta salad, Dominican-style) in the way her mom taught her years ago. We had a great time!

My other Proyecto Familiar took on a different form. Belkis, one of my girls, is from the nearby batey. She and her brother, Fausto, came here to NPH back in 2005 after their mom passed away, but they still have older siblings who live in the batey. So Belkis wanted to go visit! Fausto, on the other hand, was a lot more hesitant. At ages 13 and 15, Belkis and Fausto don’t exactly choose to spend time together if given the option (to put it nicely). After a little bit of procrastinating on Fausto's part, we all three were ready to go and off we went walking on the gravel road. It wasn’t long before we arrived and ran into their older sister and nephews; in no time at all, Belkis and Fausto were playing with their nephews as if they were little kids themselves again. I had the opportunity to sit in the shade under the cherry tree and chat with the older sister about life…from things like the mom’s death and what it’s like to be a mother of three at age 24 to things like the best type of hair extensions and jewelry. I was also in the house where Belkis and Fausto were prior to coming to NPH, which was cool to experience. Anyways, a couple hours later, it was time to start the walk back although neither of them was ready to leave yet. On the way back, we chopped down some sugar cane and then got soaking wet when the sky opened up and it started pouring! The afternoon went better than I could ever have imagined! 

Heading to the batey!

Sugar cane hunting!

Me and Belkis!

We were soaking wet!

Belkis and Fausto when they were little!

Back on the "What It Means to Have a Family" note, another thing I’ve noticed here is that the kids (esp. the older girls) love to cut out photos from magazines and paste them in their notebooks or hang them up on the walls in their bedrooms. Do you know what lots of the photos are (besides the Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber pics)? Families. Mom, dad, and kids. They are photos of complete strangers, but it’s the concept that so many of the kids here, from the youngest to the oldest, admire and aspire to achieve.

Overall, I feel like I’m realizing that the definition of family is much bigger than what I once thought it was. Throughout the first half of my time here, I’ve certainly grown a greater appreciation for the family I have, both in Minnesota and here. But at the same time, I realize that nothing can truly take the place of a mom and dad in your life. A family, including relatives, is certainly not something to take for granted despite the dysfunctional-ness we sometimes tend to focus on. 

Well, I’m not exactly sure how to end this post... there’s still so many thoughts floating through my mind. I guess just imagine if you had lost your parents (either to death or other causes) and you had ONE photo together…how much would that mean to you?