It was our last day at this particular village in Targu, Mures, Transylvania. Month 5 of our trip was coming to a close. We were saying all our “good-byes” to Romania and, what seemed like, every child in it.
After a few minutes, I noticed that Maria, one of the sweetest girls in the world, was not there. Usually, she is one of the first few to come running down the road as soon as she sees us walking to her village. Thoughts began to run through my mind. Did something happen? Is she sick? Does she just not care about us anymore…about me? I immediately became disappointed. My team brought socks and homemade headbands and bracelets for the whole village as a “goodbye” gift. If Maria was not there, she wouldn’t get anything.
We continued to walk through a couple houses, like we always do. After the second house, I finally saw her, smiling and running towards us. It was actually really sweet…I was wearing Lauren’s jacket that day because she had stayed home and I wanted to wear a different jacket. So, at first, I could see the disappointment in her face when she looked around and couldn’t spot me. Then she did. And she ran towards me, arms open and smile wide. I could tell she was just as happy to see me, as I was to see her.
She jumped on my back, like she did all the other days, and we continued to walk around the village. She sang to me, told me I was beautiful (which always turned into an argument because I’d tell her she’s beautiful and she would just shake her head and say, “Ashley chukar” which I’ve been told means “beautiful” in either Hungarian or Romanian)
Once we got to our last stop, we began to hand out socks. Yoshi and Maria helped me give the socks away. Yoshi didn’t even want a pair because he gave his away. Then, when I was ready to hand out the headbands, I gave Maria and Yoshi the first pick. Maria picked out one bracelet and a matching headband. Then, every time we came across a child, she would hop off my back, turn her back toward me so I could open my backpack and let me pick out headbands for everyone else. She was my little helper all day.
At the end of the day, I tried telling her that I would not be able to come back. I’m not sure if she completely understood but that’s the sweet thing about not being able to communicate verbally, you need to say everything with your eyes. Mine were sad, for sure. But I tried to smile so she could see I was sad to leave but happy because there was a good reason for it. Her eyes just twinkled. She started to take off my gloves that I had given her to keep her hand warm for the day. Then she started to unravel my scarf around her neck. I took her hands and put my scarf back around her neck. I put my hand over my heart and smiled. Then I pointed to myself, motioned that I was flying away (meant to be an airplane) and pointed back to her and the scarf. She just smiled and gave me the biggest hug she ever gave me before. I’m pretty sure she understood.
Hopefully, I will always be ingrained in her mind as someone who loved her as much as I could in the little amount of time I had with her. I hope that every time she wears her headband, bracelet and scarf that she thinks of me and remembers me. I have nothing from her except the unconditional love of a child who was a complete stranger to me a month ago. That is something that can never be forgotten or replaced.
