However, on that particular day he wasn't smiling. His knee was swollen and sore, so I gave him some children's tylenol and prayed over him. I told him he had probably twisted it playing soccer and then kept walking on it and made it worse. Thinking about that day now makes me wonder if I was just as innocent, as well.
After that I left to go back to America for a short trip. While I was staying with my Aunt I got a phone call saying they had taken Osdanni to a Haitian doctor and they had done x-rays. The doctor had concluded that Osdanni had cancer and his leg needed to be amputated immediately.
"What!" I said.
"What do you mean cut his leg off? There is no way the doctor could know that just by an x-ray. Just don't do anything until I get back"
When I returned, with the help of another American friend, we found a doctor from The States. He said he would help as much as possible, but after examining Osdanni he feared the worst, as well. He told us he needed to do a bone biopsy to be completely sure.
So we did the bone biopsy and the result came back as cancer. The Haitian doctor had "guessed" right. An amputation was scheduled for the following week. What I remember most about that time was my husband giving his own blood for the procedure. Osdanni's father couldn't because he had already had malaria, so Kenzy and my friend Robert volunteered in his place. I was proud of them both.
Osdanni came out of the operation ok, but the doctors told us because his cancer was so aggressive he would have to go through chemo also. He was so brave through everything. I never once heard him complain. While he was going through treatment he would often sit underneath his father's mango tree reading his bible and praying. I learned a lot about faith and trusting the Lord by watching him and his father through this time.
I remember, around Christmas time of this year Osdanni came to my house. My friends had bought a goat for him and I wanted to surprise him. He sit out on my front steps with his huge contagious smile holding his new pet. He tried to give me lessons on my guitar that day but he kept laughing at me because I was so bad.
I thought to myself, "I haven't seen him this happy in awhile. He must be beginning to get better."
Then a phone call from the doctor. Osdanni's cancer had spread into his lungs and other organs. The chemo had failed and there was nothing more they could do. If this was God's will then Osdanni's body would die within a few months.
How do you process that? How do you accept it? How do you laugh and play with a child one day and then find out he's dying the next? I thought he was getting better......
He became weaker. He started getting thinner. After awhile he began coughing so hard he couldn't sleep at night.
Yesterday we drove him to Port au Prince to a mission that has been helping to take care of him through all of this. For 3 hours I held him in my arms as he struggled to take every breath. There were times when he would stop breathing altogether and I was sure we had lost him. Then around 7:00 last night he took his last breath and went with Jesus.
I've never seen death up close like that before. It was so real. Life is so fragile.
What comfort can you give to a grieving father after he's lost his first born son? It's in these moments when I am most thankful for the sacrifice of Christ. I know where Osdanni is, and I know that because Jesus defeated death while he hung on that cross. He made heaven a possibility for us. He died so Osdani could live.
One of my favorite authors is CS Lewis. He wrote the children's novels, The Chronicles of Narnia. In the last book of the series all of the characters get to go to Aslan's Country, which in comparison would be our heaven. One of the characters describes what he's seeing as this......
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."
I'm trying to imagine what Osdanni is looking at right now. I'm wondering what conversations he's having. It's hard to fathom what he's experiencing, but whatever he's doing I'll bet he's smiling.
"But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
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