“I did not want to wake you up!”
On Mother’s Day we like to think full of gratitude of mothers’ faithfulness and their efforts for the children of this world. Saturday evening: Steven de Jager and I have made it.
- Klaus: geschafft (nur 2x “f“)
After driving 14 hours and 20 minutes we reach Curahuasi transporting 10 heavy boxes containing equipment for the intensive care units. After five days of not being at home my wife and I are sitting together at the dinner table, the room illuminated by the kitchen lamp. I have just said grace and taken a first bite of my pizza when her mobile rings. Within in no time she heads off towards the hospital: an infant, eight days old, is in life-threatening danger.
While she is taking care of the baby boy who has lost an incredible amount of weight during his first week on earth I carry the contents of my car-boot into my office. I ponder the boxes’ journey: Bad Ems, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, Panama-Canal, Lima and finally 1,000 kilometres by car through the Peruvian heartland.
Downstairs in the x-ray department Melanie Friesen takes a picture of the lungs. Dra Lincy Herreras supports my wife providing the boy with emergency treatment. The tension is etched on everyone’s faces. Don Honorato turns on the machines in the laboratory in order to make a blood analysis and determine the electrolytes. After 90 minutes everything that has to be done has been done and we drive home.
At 11p.m. the phone rings. It is the hospital ward. Half asleep I listen to the conversation. Four hours later I wake up and the bed next to me is empty. Where is my wife? After a while I find her in a rear room: “What are you doing here?” “After your long journey from Lima I did not want you to wake up, if the hospital calls!”
With a certain amount of tenacity I am able to convince my wife to change rooms. But half an hour later the phone rings again. Immediately the two of us sit bolt upright in bed. “The Baby!” My wife runs downstairs and a minute later I close the garage door behind her. A good moment to entrust the dangerously ill child, my family and Diospi Suyana to God in prayer.
Just before 6a.m. the two of us are sitting together again. Supper was somewhat different than expected as was the amount of sleep we got that night. But nevertheless they were meaningful hours. Mother’s Day 2020. A mother fights for an Indian child, not her own one, but that is besides the point! /KDJ
