sanctuary

D Ward is overrun with children, all of them in various stages of disease and disrepair. Antoinette is missing part of her nose, her face having fallen victim to a terribly rare parasite passed to her nine-year old body by the bite of a sand fly. Geraldo just had an operation to cover over the hole left in his forehead when his skin didn't heal properly after his other surgery, the one that pushed his brain back inside his skull where it belonged. Louisiano is seven and silent, his top lip swollen into a peak by the tumor there; he's first on the list for OR Four in the morning. In the corner of this band of outcasts is Anicette. She's all skin and bones and feathery curls and impossibly big eyes. Her toes are outrageously long, but maybe it just looks that way because there's not an ounce of fat on her body. It's hard to eat, you see, when your face is split wide open, the gash extending back through the lip to devour nose and palate.

To anyone standing at the door of that room, looking in without knowing what this place is, it would have been no more than a freak show. A collection of some of the most disturbing deformities we could have gathered under one roof.

To the babies and to us and to the mamas who sleep under the beds, it's a sanctuary.

D Ward is the one place where anyone who looks at Anicette is guaranteed to call her beautiful, to tickle her tiny belly and wait for the reward of a broken smile. It's the only place where Antoinette can be silly and sassy and strut her stuff in pipe-cleaner glasses without anyone staring at the sores on her face. It's a place where Louisiano is plied with stickers and toys and hugs until he finally lifts his eyes from the floor for the first time. A place where a sisterhood of mamas can sit with their bandaged babies in their laps while they play cards and sing songs and plait each others' hair.

There are times when I almost feel like taking off my shoes when I walk onto the wards. Because a sanctuary isn't just a safe haven, it's a holy place. All those children and mamas who have surrendered their fears, poured their hope out into our hands, trusted us to love them despite the horror of their wounds? They have made this place into hallowed ground.

Their sanctuary.