I was cleaning and organizing my bedroom the other day, and I found a bracelet that stopped me cold. It made me look out at the rainy day and cry. I've never spoken of it outside my closest handful of friends and I've never spoken of the little girl who gave it to me. A little girl name July, pronounced "Julie", gave me the bracelet in Haiti years ago. She slipped it on my wrist, smiled and ran off to play. July was a rambunctious child, wild, playful, smart, cunning, strong and strong willed. She was perhaps a little old and little heavy to be carried around, but she still liked it. She'd leap at me, I'd catch her and go staggering back... She was rough and tumble and liked to play with the boys. She had a huge smile she wielded freely.
She's in the wind.
Shortly after I left Haiti, police and a judge, armed with what were falsified documents, stormed the home and took July. Angelo, the little boy of whom I speak often and openly, hid in the bushes and would not leave his hiding spot for hours. All of the children were terrified at the storming and forced abduction. I use the word "stormed" justly. The children's home was a compound; it was double walled, glass and barbed wire crested each wall. The children's terror must have been intense. Soon after, on laundry day, Marie stripped July's bed, washed her sheets and put the clean sheets back on the bed. Marie simply stated "July will like fresh sheets when she comes home". In their resilient way, the children slowly coped and held onto hope.
As everything does in Haiti, it was a long process to uncover what happened and to prove the documents were false. Despite the truth being on the side of the children's home, July's whereabouts were lost. She has never been recovered. It is my daily prayer that the woman behind the heinous abduction, the falsified papers and the fear instilled into the children did this deed in a misguided act of love and that somewhere July is coping, the way Haitian children do.
I am not sure why I finally decided to share this story. Perhaps this story has been in me too long and I finally had to share.
She's in the wind.
Shortly after I left Haiti, police and a judge, armed with what were falsified documents, stormed the home and took July. Angelo, the little boy of whom I speak often and openly, hid in the bushes and would not leave his hiding spot for hours. All of the children were terrified at the storming and forced abduction. I use the word "stormed" justly. The children's home was a compound; it was double walled, glass and barbed wire crested each wall. The children's terror must have been intense. Soon after, on laundry day, Marie stripped July's bed, washed her sheets and put the clean sheets back on the bed. Marie simply stated "July will like fresh sheets when she comes home". In their resilient way, the children slowly coped and held onto hope.
As everything does in Haiti, it was a long process to uncover what happened and to prove the documents were false. Despite the truth being on the side of the children's home, July's whereabouts were lost. She has never been recovered. It is my daily prayer that the woman behind the heinous abduction, the falsified papers and the fear instilled into the children did this deed in a misguided act of love and that somewhere July is coping, the way Haitian children do.
I am not sure why I finally decided to share this story. Perhaps this story has been in me too long and I finally had to share.
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