She’s the last little girl to come home our first day at Rumah Shalom. She’s bird-boned beneath her blue and white jumper, with thick, dark hair chopped close around her ears and eyes like looking into a well at midnight. I could catch a flicker of the moon them if I looked, or maybe, my own reflection. Her mouth closes around words and holds them like chocolate; she doesn’t speak much. There’s a hesitation in her I recognize, and a joy that leaps out, surprising even her.
She’s beautiful and doesn’t know it. At eight years old, she still has the precious, earthy smell of childhood, but her eyes hold a knowing I wish I could take away. Every English word comes out spelled in a whisper, but Tamil tumbles over her tongue. Suddenly, I realize her inheritance was the wind (Proverbs 11:29). Yet she is light and lightness itself. The moment she walks in the door I know that she is the one for me this month.
Her name is Catherine, but she says it “Ka-ter-ine”.
Her house mother confirms what the LORD put on my heart: Catherine has been seriously abused. She is shy with us, dark eyes taking everything in with the caution of a habitual outsider. Pursuing her is a quiet, persistent affair, never raising my voice above gentleness. I talk to her as if she understands every word. I help her with her English homework, pointing to words and praising her as she spells every single one correctly. She’s a smart girl, there’s no question of that. Her eyes watch my mouth and she imitates the shape my lips make as I sound the words out with her. Slowly, slowly, she’s beginning to understand, not just mimic.
We watch the Chronicles of Narnia together. As Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus for the first time, Catherine sits perched on my knees, a cookie in one hand. By the time Aslan rescues Edmond, she’s curled up in my lap entirely, head against my chest, arm sprawled across my stomach. I bite my lip and try not to cry. An almost uncontainable longing to keep her safe rises up in me and I wish there was a way that I wouldn’t have to leave her behind.
Two nights later, a group of us walk back from a barbeque at the boys’ home, and somewhere between one breath and the next, the light leaves her eyes completely. My heart twists in my chest as I hug her close, praying that the LORD will somehow infuse my tongue with Tamil so I know she’ll understand me. I step away for a moment and Erica calls out that she’s fainted, she’s not breathing.
I’ve never run so fast for help. Caitlin and I arrive at the boys’ home out of breath and shaking, barely able to tell Reverend Arul and Brother Joseph to rush home. They take her to the emergency room and until she comes home, Erica and I stay on our faces, praying and worshipping. The diagnosis is that she’s had a panic attack. We praise God that that’s all it was, but I have to wonder what triggered the panic. It takes Catherine two days to come back to us fully. I wonder if this is how a mother feels when her child hurts. There seems to be an ache in me for her that won’t go away.
Sometimes we go to the park and I push her on the swings. She learns to pump her legs out and then in, flying so high that the entire set shakes. In those moments, her joy ricochets through me like a bullet from a gun. We read Disney stories and I tickle her until she squeals with laughter. I’ve never heard anything as sweet as her laughing and laughing.
She asks for me by pointing to her nose, indicating my hoop nosering, and saying, “Sista.” She taps the seat beside her at meals, insisting I sit with her. There’s something about this little girl that makes me want to stop whatever else I’m doing, to make her a priority. Most days, we spend hours sitting at the kitchen table or on the couch, trying to talk or playing made up games. I’ve never had my heart so completely taken captive by a child.
My heart longs to bring her home with me, to make her part of the next stage of my life, whatever that is. I know that’s completely impractical, impossible even. Yet there is something that has risen up in me, some love for her that is new and sweet and strange. Some love that makes me want to cherish and protect and be selfless. I want her to know she is always loved, permanently taken care of, eternally adored. I want the hurt of her past to be wiped away, so that every nightmare is gone forever. I want her to be free to be the girl on the swingset.
So I pray that long after I’m gone, she remembers she was once held with tenderness. I pray that after she forgets about me, she remembers the truth we spoke over her. I pray that after she closes the gate of Rumah Shalom for the last time, she remembers she is not abandoned, not forgotten, not alone.
She is safe. She is free. She is loved.
She is the light, and darkness can never touch her because she is the light.
She is light. And light she shall remain.
