A touching moment with Benjamy and mom

September 4, 2012

 

I took Benjamy to visit his mother, whom people said was in a hospital, but turned out she is staying in a kind of rest and retreat center.  I drove the parish SUV west for about 45 minutes to arrive at “Rouck”.  About half of the drive was on dirt road filled with rocks and pot holes.  At one point, the route took us across a stream of briskly flowing water.  The road followed the coast line with magnificent ocean view most of the way, until the turn off to “Rouck”.

This would be the first time Benjamy and his mom would see one another in more than four months.  The family is desperately poor.  The mom, Janine, has been sick since I first met her three years ago.  At one point I helped her pay for hospital costs.  Benjamy has more or less always been on his own.  He is only six years old now, and I remember him as a toddler roaming around half dressed and always filthy dirty.  Many times I took him to the guest house for a bath and clean clothes.  Benjamy had a reputation for being an uncontrolled and uncontrollable child.  People named him “desod”, which means “disorder”.  He was growing up “wild”.

He has always been one of my favorite kids here in Bondeau, so when I was planning Kay Timoun, I asked Benjamy’s mom if he could stay with me.  Her first reply was something like, “Oh, you don’t want him!  He’s always dirty, he rolls around on the ground, he’s ‘desod’.  Take my girl, she’ll be better for you.”  But no, I told her that Benjamy is a very special boy and I want to care for him.  She shook her head, like she didn’t understand why I would want him.  Even Junior, at that time, tried to discourage me saying Benjamy is hard to control, is a wild kid.  But, Benjamy has turned out to be a joy, a great kid, smart and lovable.

We found Janine in a dark room at the rest center. She came outside where we could all see one another.  I expected that mother and son would hug and kiss, but that didn’t happen, maybe because she might be contagious.  After a few minutes of Benjamy and mom gazing at one another, I handed Benjamy a bible and asked him to read Psalm 23 for his mom.  Now, Benjamy has not yet begun first grade, so he can’t read.  But he held the bible and recited word for word Psalm 23.  Janine cried! 

What a wonderful reunion between mother and son!  I don’t know what the prognosis is for Janine, but before I left, she asked me if I would keep Benjamy.  I said yes!