Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. -Matthew 10:29
Although they contrasted in so many ways, both blows were equally devastating. One, a large life, came to a sudden and unexpected end. I was over at his house and we were talking; I went out and the next minute Truman was gone. The other life, known by few and talked about only in hushed tones as “some girl from downriver who got that disease from her husband,” suffered perhaps the most agonizing death I have ever witnessed. One was a young mother starting out in life and the other was a grandfather contemplating his legacy. Yet poignantly, the two were born in the same small village, were distantly related, left Waspam to meet Jesus between 1:15 and 2:45 on the same afternoon, and were buried within 50 feet of each other during the glum drizzle of August 4. For Nutie and I, the events surrounding their passing were completely intertwined; we experienced them both up close as one gut-wrenching episode, such that I cannot tell about one without mentioning the other. Two sparrows did fall on the afternoon of August the second. They were both equally precious in the sight of God. They were both equally precious to us.
A few weeks ago as we were finishing a late lunch I noticed someone out on the porch. “They always come when we are eating,” I complained. I didn’t know who it was, just that it was somebody needing something.
It was Beres, one of our teachers and Pastor of the Moravian Church in Sawa. Distraught, he told us that his daughter was gravely ill in the hospital and pleaded that we would visit them. He had been in Waspam for a week and none of them had eaten anything all day. Truman and Dani were still in Puerto Cabezas with the salaries, delayed because Dani had suffered a mild heart attack. I gave Beres some money for food and promised we’d be by to see them later in the afternoon.
Ana Rosa lay emaciated on a cot with an intravenous tube attached to her wrist. She was in great pain, her belly swollen tight as a drum and her breathing labored. Her olive skin looked pale and I couldn’t see her turned-away eyes to tell whether she was jaundiced or not. Beres informed us that she had been fine a month ago and her husband had been sick, but now he was feeling better and she was like that. “Did the doctor say what she’s got?” I asked. “Her liver is swollen,” was all he said. I prayed, Nutie played her ukulele and sang. “This is my Momma’s favorite song, she said as she began to strum “One Day At A Time.” Ana Rosa, rising above the pain, silently sang along with the Spanish lyrics. Afterward, she mouthed the words Thank You.
We began to make daily visits, singing and praying, but Ana’s condition did not improve. Her parents were hurt that nobody else came to visit. Not the in-laws, no one from the church. Ana, writhing, said she just wanted to go home. Aware that I would probably be asked to help financially, I asked the doctor about her condition. He said that he was not at liberty to discuss her case, an ethic strictly observed for only one disease. He assured me that she couldn’t get any medication that she wasn’t receiving already, and that it would be unwise to move her.
“Do the parents understand?” I asked, “Because I want to help them make an informed decision. “Yes,” he answered. “If the father wants to tell you, he can.” Beres, standing behind me, said nothing. There was only the shame.
Beres called early the morning on August second. Could we come pray for her. From his tone of voice, I knew he was asking me to perform some kind of Last Rites. When we arrived, we found bedsheets stretched like curtains around her cot. Her skin no longer able to stand the mere touch of bedclothes, Ana Rosa lay naked, crying out repeatedly:
“Ay ay Momma turn me.”
“Ay ay Momma pick me up.”
Nutie went inside the makeshift tent and sang. As the music magically quieted her spirit I was reminded of how I wished they’d sing in church. I was summoned in. Having no idea what a proper Moravian Last Rites looked like in Pastor Beres’ mind, I prayed only a few short words:
“Lord, as you walked those Jewish boys through the flames,
Jesus won’t you come by here?
Now is her time of need.”
Immediately feeling His presence, I asked her to close her eyes and see Him reaching out to her. “Take his hand. Trust Him. He wants to take you where He is.”
I watched her hand open and her fingers move.
Nutie and I embraced the parents and went home. So did Ana Rosa.
Being from downriver, they needed everything—how to take the body away, a house to host a wake, a coffin to put her in, food to feed the mourners, a way back to their village where they could bury her. They looked to me to provide the answers. I went to Truman.
Mirna answered the door—she had just returned an hour earlier from two months of medical treatment in Managua and, reunited at last with her husband, had sat down to eat. She had rouge on her face. I excused myself for the intrusion and asked if I might borrow the truck. “Just a minute,” she said.
Shortly, Truman emerged from the kitchen, still chewing. “That’s the hospital’s responsibility,” he said. “They have to issue a death certificate. If the ambulance is busy, the physician can write me a note requesting my assistance.”
Of course. What was I thinking? This is a hospital—you can’t just cart your dead away. Just because Nutie and I had walked around freely in that facility, never having to check in anyplace … I’d forgotten some rules might still apply.
“What about the trip downriver tomorrow? They want to bury her in Sawa. We could take them with us, yeah?”
“I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to ask Dani.” Truman seemed strangely distant. He looked tired. I was interrupting his lunch date with his wife.
“I understand that the Mayor’s office gives coffins to people in need. What do you know about that?”
Without another word, Truman dialed the Lieutenant Mayor. I could tell by Truman’s half of the conversation that the woman on the other end was trying to pressure him to pay. “You’re with the gringos,” she seemed to be saying. “They’ve got money.” Never mind that there was a special fund to provide coffins for poor people. Truman answered back: “We are providing for the transport of the body down to Sawa. That implies a huge expense— sixty gallons of gasoline. We’re asking you for a couple of thousand for a coffin, that’s all.”
Initially, his words bothered me. We were going downriver anyway; there wouldn’t be any extra expense. But of course, this was the way they negotiate here. “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” Truman always was a Kenny Rogers fan. In the end the Lieutenant Mayor capitulated. It was a win. I was glad I wasn’t doing the deal; I probably would have been denied on the supposition of my superior wealth, and Beres would not have had the grit to speak up. I was glad also that Truman had committed to taking Ana Rosa back to Sawa. It was a double win. I thanked him and hurried out to get the death certificate, make photocopies, take them down to the Alcaldía, visit the coffin maker, and hire a pick-up truck for a hearse. I had no idea that I had engaged Truman in his last conversation and act on this earth—to secure a coffin for his mother’s second cousin’s son’s daughter.
I was chasing down Ana Rosa’s coffin when I saw Roxy—Dani’s wife—sprinting, which is something she probably hasn’t done since grade school. “Truman’s fainted,” she gasped, and I knew something was up but Beres was tagging along with me so I couldn’t just drop what I was doing. “Probably his blood pressure’s up,” Beres reasoned. I handed the letter from the Mayor’s office to don Chico the coffin-maker. He gave a visual grunt over his glasses that said, “Government work … I’m not going to see that money for awhile.” But he had filled another order earlier in the day and had banged out an extra pine box on speculation. Ana Rosa’s casket was sitting right up there on the work bench awaiting a coat of varnish. Seeing that things were more-or-less in order, I excused myself and rushed over to Truman’s. Onofre was at the gate, gazing forlornly back toward the hospital. He swiped his hands in the air in front of him in a sign that means, “It’s all over.” Ironically, I thought, the same gesture in baseball means “Safe at home.” I called Nutie and texted Mike Bagby the news immediately.
Don Chico had some higher priced mahogany coffins that weren’t spoken for but none of them were large enough to fit Truman. Even in death, he was larger than life. His family included half the lower Coco River and most of the other half took pains to allude to some vague relation. It was inevitable that the wake of a man who cast such a huge shadow would eclipse a vigil being held on the soggy outskirts of town for a twenty-three year old housewife who had succumbed to an unmentionable disease.
A Proverb:
Three things amaze me; four things I’ll never understand:
The way black hornets move their nests in September before the wind shifts,
How ants march ahead of the flood,
How nighthawks announce a spell of dry weather
How the death knell tolls without mentioning a name, and waves of people flow up the street toward the house of the unexpectedly departed.
One man who had been drinking that afternoon wailed loudly, already dressed in black. A crowd gathered and quickly spilled out into the street. Dignitaries arrived. Benches suddenly appeared and the intersection was blocked off. People in Puerto Cabezas were being mobilized and entire villages downriver were emptying out as a throng poled, paddled, and motored against the current. By nightfall all the teachers were present and a quartered bullock from Truman’s herd in Sawa was being offloaded at the gate.
“Are people coming from the United States?” “¿Viene el Jefe?” I found myself being asked this question repeatedly, usually by people who had no more skin in it than to avail themselves of free food and coffee. The tone was more than expectation; it was proprietary and it irked me, not only because the Bagby’s were stuck on the island of Utila with a tropical storm bearing down on them and would not be able to make it, but also because we all loved and valued Truman for who he was, not for what his stature and accomplishments required in terms of recognition on the world stage. We had seen him deal with the whole “Lord of the Lower Coco River” thing, and to his credit, we thought he had largely put it behind him. Ultimately he had been more concerned with the issues of bipartisanship and reconciliation in a time of increasing political intransigence. He had become a peacemaker, not a demagogue.
I went home to see if I could get a bite to eat, freshen up, and return to the wake with Nutie for an hour or two in the evening, but when I got there the phone rang. Patricia, Beres’ wife, was hysterical. Ana Rosa’s body had burst and blood was flowing out of every orifice. I told her I would be right there; she hung up before I could say anything further.
“That could be a potentially dangerous situation,” Nutie reminded. “Because of the disease.”
“Oh no,” I shouted and rapidly tried to dial her back but no one picked up. I imagined the mother on her hands and knees trying desperately to mop up a pool of HIV contaminated blood. “This is a public health emergency,” I gasped.
Now dark, I rode down to the hospital on my bike, but there was no one in charge. They said Dr Saul had gone home. There was not a moment to spare. I cycled furiously over to his house. The path was muddy, trees were down; by the time I got to the door I wasn’t much to look at. He wasn’t there either—he was in a meeting at the Mayor’s office. I asked if there was another way out onto the street through the maze of back yards and patches of thicket and got pointed in a most unfortunate direction. Barbed wire tore my pants. I had to carry my bike through waist deep mud puddles in the dark.
I found the town leaders watching Tropical Storm Earl on the Weather Channel. I looked like I had just emerged from its center. All eyes turned as I barged into the room and blurted out what I had to tell. Dr Saul explained calmly that there was no danger; the virus dies when the body temperature drops after death. “Just make sure you clean up everything with Clorox,” he said. “And be sure to use gloves.” Suddenly I felt very tired.
I delivered a gallon of bleach to the wake and returned home to clean up. I finally made it over to Truman’s wake around nine o-clock and stayed for a couple of hours.
Obviously, our routine trip downriver was off. This meant a change of plans for Beres also. Fate had decided to bury his daughter in Waspam.
There is s certain type of Miskito man who tends to find his way into a pastoral vocation. He is at once harmless, without guile, trustworthy, and considered by all to be a “good man” but at the same time wholly lacking enterprise, most passive, a trifle adverse to hard physical work, and seemingly motivated to action by the outspoken wife whom he is wont to marry. Beres is such a man. Now grief stricken and disoriented, he is called upon to be an event planner, and the event is none other than his own daughter’s funeral.
Without any money he must think about purchasing concrete blocks, cement, sand, gravel, rebar, zinc, some form lumber, and an iron pipe, because that’s the way they do here in the city. He would also need to feed the mourners for another day, because it would take at least one more day to get all those materials together and build the tomb. I had given him seven hundred cordobas for that purpose, and he had received an equal amount from miscellaneous donations, but that had barely sufficed to feed people on the first night of the wake.
Woefully, he told me that he had managed to borrow 66 concrete blocks but he still needed seven bags of cement, which amounted to approximately $100. I agreed to get that for him, but when I went down to Isolina’s hardware store I ran into the local Sandinista leaders, Carlos Dixon and Martha Zamora, standing beside a pick-up truck into which seven bags of cement and some rebar had just been loaded. They explained that the FSLN was making that donation and that I could cooperate by paying for the concrete blocks. I was elated and pleasantly surprised to see the community rallying around one of their own in his time of need. It struck me that Beres was totally unaware of these things coming together.—certainly he was not orchestrating it. God was lovingly providing for a poor village pastor at wits’ end.
Four of Truman’s eight children were on their way from Managua in the bus. Another was on her way from Puerto Cabezas, having located and purchased on credit an expensive coffin big enough and grand enough to fit her dear father. His burial would not take place until the following day either, but turning him into the ground so soon had never been a consideration. Everything was being planned and efficiently taken care of.
For one reason or another the only acceptable time for a funeral service is between one and two o’clock in the afternoon; to relegate someone to a non-prime time funeral would communicate that their life was of lesser importance. Would both funerals take place side by side—Ana Rosa’s in the Moravian Church and Truman’s in the Catholic? Nutie and I imagined ourselves standing out in front trying to determine which door to enter. “I hope they don’t happen at the same time,” Nutie mused.
It had been Truman’s wish, his family informed us, that that we share a meal together at his departure from this world; just the close family of siblings, spouses, offspring, and us, the mission team. Everyone pitched in and on the second night of the wake we ate, although it was not what Nutie and I imagined, which is of course what happens. With a crowd flowing out into the street it was impossible to eat an intimate meal in physical proximity of one another. Instead, as the multitudes ate of the beef brought up from Sawa, Leskia and Mayga cooked up a cauldron of arroz con pollo and each grabbed a bite as opportunity allowed, in the midst of serving others. Nutie and I were royally served at the kitchen table—the kitchen being among the Miskito people typically off limits to the public—and we watched through the open doorway the swirling drama taking place in the sala. Catholic catechists stood and raised their voices beside the coffin, declaring that salvation is also by works according to the Epistle of James, presenting Truman’s accomplishments as evidence of his sure passage into the bosom of the Lord, and warning the young men to turn away from their profligate lifestyles and follow his example lest they be turned away in the Day of Judgement.
Throughout the proceedings, Mirna, sedated, sat quietly on her king size bed in the boudoir attended by ladies dressed in black, the door cracked open to deter the merely curious while allowing those with genuine sentiments to enter.
Two portable canvas awnings loaned by the Catholic Church were pitched in the yard. The rank and file sat on long wooden benches underneath them. These semi-pro mourners told jokes and spun yarns, enjoyed free food. They showed their respect by being present and earned their keep by dutifully persevering through the vigil. It was a proper Miskito wake for a prominent member of the community.
Thunder rumbled throughout the night and in the grey morning Beres called to tell me that Ana Rosa was decomposing quickly. They needed to bury her now, but they were still short the form lumber, the iron pipe, and a truck to carry his daughter away. I instructed him to send his son Jaffeth to come fetch a pipe that I had set aside and hustled out to the waterfront to find some one-by tens which, luckily, were plentiful. I sent four planks with a pair of scurrilous fellows who laid them across wobbly one wheeled carts in such a way as to occupy twin ten foot swaths of the busy street, and watched them shove off, seriously hung over, in the direction of the cemetery— “El Panteón” in their parlance. Calling out that I would meet them there, I peddled my bicycle over to Marlene’s house where Ana Rosa’s vigil was waning.
It was drizzling. “Nakra laya” in Miskito: God’s tears. While a handful of exhausted family members still huddled sadly under yet another awning (courtesy of the mayor) that buckled with the product of last night’s showers, guileless Rosalinda played happily out in the open with other small children, equally dread-free of her mother’s death and the tears falling from the sky. Suddenly seized by an inspiration, she grabbed a broom and pushed up on a bulge in the awning. The ensuing waterfall sent the grown-ups scurrying. She was only trying to help, poor thing. Drenched and gasping, no one could bring themselves to say an ill-tempered word. Candles glowed on somber faces that peered out through the doorway of the darkened hut and gazed upon the child for whom mortality did not exist.
A neighbor came by. I recognized him from church. “Did you notify Ebenor Panting?” he asked Beres. “I didn’t hear the bell.”
Beres shook his head.
Even though Beres was only a village lay pastor, he was still a commissioned minister of the Moravian Church. I couldn’t believe he possessed so little self-importance that he hadn’t considered bothering his reverend superiors with this detail. A bell meant there would be a funeral service in the large white church on the town square.
“Send Absalón,” the neighbor insisted.
“Lend me your bike,” said the frail boy with the unfortunate biblical name. He was happy to be given a role and I was pleased that he trusted me enough to ask. I watched him mount and ride off. Nutie and I had known him since he was in first grade back in Sawa. He had seemed so sure of himself among his peers as he progressed in his schooling. I had marked him as a leader. Then, when he came to Waspam for seventh grade, he changed. Did he miss home? Was he intimidated by the town boys, I wondered. They could speak Spanish. He had an accident; he cut himself with a machete and severed the tendons in his wrist. There was no proper PT, just a few exercises that the doctor had recommended, and perhaps he didn’t aggressively work on it. Now, traumatized by something so seemingly trivial as a loss of range of motion and grip strength, he had become shy, inward. I had shown him my own right wrist, snapped in two playing basketball in Honduras with the same therapy options—dipping my hand into hot paraffin, squeezing a ball, and rolling up a towel with my fingers. I had not fully recovered either. I couldn’t blame him. But this was a spiritual thing. It was in the family, in his father. Why couldn’t I cast it out?
Beres had to decide. It was already too late to ask, but he’d sent the boy anyway. No, he must bury her now. There was the “two turtledove” option—in this case it was a culturally acceptable practice for people of little means to take their loved one straight to the gravesite and hold a small service there, which would consist of singing some hymns and offering a brief biblical meditation. This is what he said he wanted. Would I do it? He needed a truck. I needed my bike back.
Absolón returned. He had delivered the message but had not waited for a reply from the Moravian official. I dashed out to find a truck. On any other day I would borrow the brand new Toyota that the mission had purchased. Today, obviously, it wasn’t available. It was being used in the other business.
I went from shop to shop along the main drag, first asking the merchants I knew and did business with. Their vehicles were all busy. A taxi wouldn’t do—the sight of a coffin protruding at a tilt from the trunk of a compact car would cause gasps of horror. A Miskito funeral procession is no place for creative solutions. A hearse … in your dreams. If one were to plunk down $50,000 for a used black Cadillac, pay all the introduction fees in Nicaragua, and charge, say, the paltry sum of $30 for its service, he would surely have to sell 2,000 funerals to those whom local people considered “rich”—two thousand Trumans—just to pay it off. In Waspam, the proper vehicle is a pick-up truck, and hopefully one with decent tires and a tailgate that worked. At last, a store owner called her son on the phone and said that he would come by just as soon as he had finished running an errand. “Sit downShe offered me a plastic chair.guy named Mario whose parents had a store next to Vidcar’s. Mario, draped in silver chains and dressed in a white wife-beater, said he would go.
NOTE: THIS STORY IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION, BUT I HAVE DECIDED TO PUBLISH IT NOW SO AS TO INCLUDE A LINK IN OUR NEWSLETTER. IF YOU HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR, PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES AND CHECK BACK LATER FOR THE COMPLETED ARTICLE.
