Day 59

Cosmin is my Tiny Tim

Lumi brought in photo albums today .. like 3. One of her son and one of her daughter andrea. Her son is 22 and her daughet I think is 14 or so. They were beautiful children. It was difficult because the word frumos is one of the few adjectives I know. It means handsome, nice and beautiful so you better believe I said frumos a lot! Lumi was so pretty back then. She had pictures of her wedding, her parents.. I really appreciated her sharing her family with me. You could tell that she took a lot of pride in her family. She was also telling me that her husband has had throat cancer for 5 years and has not been able to speak for 2.. they can only communicate by writing. She was saying that it was very difficult, but that she loves these children very much. She had a really old picture with the kids and a past BYU intern. It must have been 10 or so years ago and the orphanage room did not look anything the same. It was so crazy to see just how much renovation has gone into the building.

I brought orange balloons for the kids and some chocolate biscuits (cookies) for the kids for a little Halloween party. After all my excitement in buying flowers for the room, I left them at home. So frustrating! I still wanted to get them something, a. because they have been so generous to me lately, b. Lumi fixed my favorite bag yesterday, and c. I will not be there for a week. I stopped by the fresh pretzel shop on the way to the orphanage and picked up a few. The boy working there sees us come and go every day so he asked me where I was from. I said United States, he goes ‘like united states, UNITED STATES?’ um yes? It was kind of humorous. Can’t you tell by my wonderful Romanian accent?

Anyways back to the Halloween party, it was a bit of a fail because no one had a sharpie for me to draw jackolantern faces on the balloons. They also do not celebrate Halloween, not to mention Halloween is not until Sunday, so it was kind of difficult to explain the gesture. Mihaela tied these soccer scarves around the kids heads in such a way that it looked like they had turbans. We all got a kick out of it as Mihaela kept saying ‘arabe! Arabe!’ I guess that was their Halloween costume! I brought my camera because Lumi keeps saying that she wants a picture with me but I chickened out at the last minute and left the camera in my pocket. There is a strict no picture rule with the orphanage so I did not want her to misunderstand my gesture. I will soon though. Maybe plan a day so that everyone can feel like they look good and they know why I have a camera. I still am so disappointed I cannot take pictures because I will miss these kids so much. I will not post the pictures, but I want them to remember.

I think that by making gestures like, showing my family, bringing treats, strumbling to communicate, helps the workers trust me more. I feel lke I am moving up in the ranks of sorts. They grant me more freedom as well as more responsibility. Today for instance, this gorgeous girl that they often call ‘princesa’ had bitten the side of her tongue so hard that she was bleeding pretty badly. From what the workers have told me, she has shaken baby syndrome, and was heavily abused. Thus far she has seemed very non responsive and she also is nearly completely blind. Today Mihaela said she has epilepsy? I think she had a spastic outburst when she bit her lip. She was just sobbing and sobbing. I unclasped her from her little stroller and picked her up and just held her. I did not ask permission and Mihaela did not say anything. I just held her and she proved us all wrong. I started stroking Princesa’s ear and after a big she stopped crying. This is a response! It was seriously such a happy and precious moment for me that I got chills. I know it seems so small and so normal.. when you hold a child they stop crying. The fact that she has been deemed un responsive but responded to me today was so incredible. Even more so was when I layed her down in bed and I kissed her palm, I could see the tiniest little smile hiding in the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were still distant and moving all around the place, but I know what I saw and it made my day.

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Hospital: I played a lot with Cosmin. He has been telling me all week that he is going home at 2pm today, but it was 4 pm and I saw no sign of any family members. He reminded me 3 or so times that he was going home today. We made faces and he took over 150 pictures with my camera of his book, toys, room, bed etc. I had a lot of work deleting the pictures when I got home. He seemed a bit stand offish, distant, and sad. When I was leaving, I asked the nurse if he was going home today. She said ‘no he will be here a while’. I looked at Cosmin and he had heard the whole thing. This look of heart wrenching sorrow came over his face and he said ‘well, in a little I will go home’. He has been fed empty promises all week, he has been looking forward to today and going home all week and his own family ‘stands him up’. It absolutely broke my heart. I also found out today that his dad is an alcoholic.. that his mother abandoned him.. so at home all he really has is the alcoholic father and an 18 year old brother who is going off to school. Sure, he will be home, but he will have no one to give him the love and laughs that he needs.. not to mention the extra attention to his little crippled legs and inability to walk. I just wish there was something I could do. I wish I could take him home or be sure he had a happy home and the care that he needs. He is like my little Tiny Tim. This sweet, loving boy who cannot walk, but you can feel his brightness and hope in life, even though he does not have a promising life. I am going to be gone all next week so I really hope that I get to say goodbye to him. I tried to say goodbye but I did not know how to tell him that this could be goodbye for good. I am glad that I have made friends with Alexandra on that floor, because then at least I have someone I could ask about Cosmin; if he left, who picked him up, etc.

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Tonight Dani and I prepared the cupcakes and frosting from scratch for the ward party. It was a lot of work as we have an oven you have to light manually that has no temperature settings. You also have to refill a pan of water at the bottom of the oven so that the temperature can be maintained. The blender would overheat every few minutes. Our muffin tin only had 6 little holes and we had no liners so suffice it to say there was a lot of effort expended. It was so worth it though. The cupcakes turned out so successfully! I don’t mean to boast.. but if Dani and I can bake tasty successful cupcakes in Romania, we can bake tasty successful cupcakes anywhere!