baby love

it's amazing. it must be the purest, truest form of love in the world. baby love. it's so automatic and unconditional. and then, as we get older, somehow that capacity for love diminishes to a point where sometimes it's difficult even to recognize love's existence. why is that?

My roommate volunteers at the Centro de Emergencia in Praia, and for a while she's been trying to get me to go with her. The Centro de Emergencia is, for all intents and purposes, an orphanage. It houses children ranging from newborn to fourteen years whose parents can't take care of them. At first, when she asked me to go, I told her I'd go if all I had to do was hold babies. I'm always a little wary of working with little kids because I don't feel that I have the energy or imagination to keep little kids busy for long periods of time. And, really, all I wanted to do was hold babies. It's all I've wanted to do since I was 17 and my first niece was born. I'd even skip school sometimes just to go hold her in the middle of the day. But I digress...

I've put off visiting the center for many reasons, but last night I decided to go and check the place out to see if I really wanted to start volunteering there several times per week. The first room I was led into was the baby room. They were mostly all asleep, but still, the feeling hit me instantly. Here was a roomful of babies without mothers, aching to be held. The woman who was in charge of watching the children for the evening led us to one crib in particular. She pulled a blanket back, and there lay the baby who, I'm certain, is destined to break my heart every day for the remainder of my service. This baby is only 10 days old, without a name, already living in an orphanage.

Looking around at all the cribs, two older babies stood and stared, their eyes begging for attention. I thought of my baby niece; how in the last months before I left I'd rock her to sleep and stare at her little baby face and hold her little baby hand, and I urged myself to hold on to those memories. I thought about all of my nieces and nephews, how I'd held each of them when they were babies, how important it was that I cradle them close so they could hear my heartbeat and know that everything is ok. How I'd sometimes just stare at them, rest my hand lightly on their chests to feel their heartbeat and their breathing and their life, so new and so lovely. I wondered if any of the attendants at the center ever did this for these babies, but I suppose we all know the answer to that.

I couldn't stay with them because they were sleeping, so we wandered upstairs to the playroom for the older children, who range in age from 3 to 16. The room was crowded with kids, all gathered around a television that was playing music videos, Black Eyed Peas I think. Many of the older children did not take their eyes off of the screen, but a whole gang of the younger ones headed my way. I was greeted immediately by a rambunctious little boy who threw himself into my legs and hugged mightily. He smiled at me and I could see that he was missing about 4 of his front teeth. Next was a little girl with messy braids and an inside-out yellow shirt. As I sat in a little chair, she plopped herself right in my lap like a queen taking her seat at the throne. Lots of other children gathered around, most of them wanting to be hugged or just have their existence acknowledged in some way.

A few of them noticed my tattoos and one boy asked me to translate the one on my ankle, which reads "A Love Exists That Gives. And Won't Take Back What's Given." Appropriately, it's from a Cisneros poem about motherhood. Trying to translate it proved a daunting task, so I simply told him "Kela e sobre uma amor. Amor de Mae y filho." That's about a love. Love of Mother and child. He looked at me and I knew he didn't understand what I was trying to say, which was ok. I could see in his eyes that it was enough that I was talking to him, that I took a few minutes to sit down next to him and show him some small love.

We stayed for a little over an hour, all the while trying our best to talk to and hold as many of the children as possible. They climbed in my lap, touched my hair, hugged me and scooted as close to me as possible. They begged me to read to them, and then they endured my terrible Portuguese pronunciation. We counted things and named colors. I patted backs and scratched heads and played with hand puppets and toy cars. They brought me book after book, each more tattered than the last. Each time one child got up to retrieve another book or toy, another would climb into my lap and touch my face or rest their head on my chest. Some would just lay in my lap and look up at me, smiling as though nothing in the world could be better than that moment. Eventually I told my roommate that we needed to leave because it was getting late and I had work to do. In truth, it was too much for me. All the love I felt from those children, baby love that has survived into childhood even though they've never felt it reciprocated the way all children should.

We left at around 9 and walked home, and that walk was the most difficult I've had since walking away from my family at the airport. I couldn't take my mind off of those children, those babies, all of them desperate for someone to love, for someone to love them back. When I got home, I sent a quick text message to my mother: "Went to the orphanage tonight. My heart is broken. I love you." I wished I could bring my mother to those children, show them what it's like to be loved by the greatest mother who ever existed, whose love can cure any ailment, can mend any broken heart. I wished she could come and hold each of them, talk to them the way a mother does, and let them know, the way I always knew as a child, the way I still know, that everything in the world is ok so long as her love exists. And then it became a selfish wish. I wished that she could be here to hold me, to rub my back and tell me that the love I tried to show was good and right, if brief.

Last night I couldn't sleep. I wanted to talk about all of the things I was feeling, but I knew I needed to feel them first and talk later. So I lay there wondering whether I should go back to the center, whether I have the emotional maturity to endure such constant heartache. I wondered whether I can handle holding and loving all of those babies, knowing that I will never have one of my own. I don't know if I can handle it, but I don't know how I could possibly justify staying away. When in doubt, I always remember my mother telling me, every time some boy broke my heart, "M'ija, I know it hurts now, but loving someone is never a mistake."