From Haiti, With Love

Walking through the terminal toward a waiting room full of expectant, adopting parents, I felt as if I have spent a week in the Miami International Airport, not 24 hours. Tired already and having the sneaking suspicion I would be up throughout the night and next day, I took a moment to reflect. In crisis work, I have been trained to have a bag packed and be ready to leave on a moments notice. Still, responding to a crisis call for the first time was a jolt of adrenaline and apprehension. I received the message to head to Miami to help with the care and transport of Haitian orphans last Wednesday at 11:30 am. I was on a plane by 3:30pm.

The original plan was that there would be three planes traveling into Haiti to transport orphans back to the US to their adoptive parents. One trip a day: fly in, board the children, fly home, reunite them with Moms and Dads. Clockwork. Except that words like “plan” and “clockwork” never apply in times of crisis and disaster. The situation was dynamic and details changed minute by minute. Through it all, the lead on the ground in Miami was also an adoptive mother whose husband was in Haiti with their two boys. I have a short list of women I consider to be Warrior Mothers and Tanya Ramsay is on that list. Emotions run high when so many precious lives are on the line. From time to time when it all got too much in the long hours of waiting, we would reach out to remind one another of our common goal: put those children in their parents loving arms.

As it turned out, I would be on the ground for only one of the planes coming out of Haiti. I had hoped to be on the transport team and get my feet on the ground in-country. This is where I learned another important lesson of crisis work: where you are most needed might not be the place you expected to be. I stayed on the ground in Miami with the parents as they waited at the charter airline ticket counter all night long.

Here was the amazing thing: I expected them to be beside themselves with worry and grief which would manifest itself in anger. After all, their children were in harms way. Even before the earthquake, they lived in a perilous country. Haiti was struggling: 80% of the population lives in poverty, nearly half does not have access to clean drinking water, and close to 3% has a positive HIV/AIDS status. 380,000 orphans are living in orphanages around Haiti and, sadly, many more orphans have been created in the last two weeks. Who would blame a parent if he or she were beside themselves in anguish as they waited for the safe return of their sons and daughters?

What I experienced was something very different than anguish or anger. The parents were patient, loving, excited, eager...and serene. That’s the best word I can put to it. Even as I write it, it seems implausible that serenity could exist in the midst of chaos and disaster. There was something in the air that night that I have yet to put my finger on. Some would say it was the presence of God providing comfort and peace. Some might say it was the power of synergy. Whatever it was, I experienced, in a most profound way, what I intellectually believed for years: people are resilient; they have the power to not only sustain, but embody their best selves in the moment they would be forgiven for being their worst.

As I sat with the parents throughout the night, my mind kept wandering to the scene that must have been going on in the plane and in customs with those 81 Haitian children. Their plane safely landed at 1am, but their journey was long from over. The children, along with the orphanage teachers, director and a slew of TSA agents, would spend the next 8 hours in customs. I know what flying with my children is like under ideal circumstances and it is trying at best. I ached for those children and for those who were taking care of them. As tired as I was, having not slept in nearly 24 hours at that point, I knew that my exhaustion could not compare to theirs.

Finally, at close to 9am in the morning, the announcement was made that the children were through customs. Parents were directed to a private meeting area where we would reunite them with their children. Dr. Michele Kelly and I, along with team members Ben Escobar, Allison Stone and many others, met the children and orphanage workers in the children’s waiting room. Many were exhausted and all were hungry and thirsty from their trip. There were children crying, but there were just as many children smiling and laughing. They seemed to know that they were home. We found our way to children and workers who seemed most in need of support.

I quickly spotted an amazing young woman who was working at the orphanage during the earthquake and had already made two trips in and out of Haiti delivering medical supplies and bringing home children. She was holding two young toddlers in her weary arms. I am still amazed by her strength which shone through the fatigue and shock in her eyes. She allowed me to take one of the little girls from her arms to lighten her load, if only just a little. This little one...about the age of my youngest son...clung to me for the better part of two hours as I continued to walk the room and help where I could. She clutched her bottle and rarely took her eyes off of mine. I could feel her relax as I carried her.

I have no doubt what our team did in that room was therapeutic, but it required no degree to perform the care. We soothed with gentle voice, wiped a tear, sang a song (oh, what beautiful song they taught us), gazed into questioning eyes and held a person in need. My reward at the end of that long, long 3 day journey was the experience of handing a child to his waiting mother’s arms. Words fail me.

Saturday morning I woke from my first full night’s sleep since Tuesday. I had the entire morning and much of the afternoon to myself before my flight back home to Denver. I found a corner of the airport to sit. Slowly, the world outside began to seep in. I could hear the Cuban music coming from a souvenir shop and the frustrated voices of cruisers with delayed flights home. Wavering between which world I was ready to join, I sat with an InStyle magazine in my lap, unopened.