A Link I Think You'll Find Worth the Time it Takes to Read...

A Grief Interruption

Go ahead. Head on over to read it.
You really won't even need to come back here after you do.

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I've only spoken with Deb, the author of this blog, a few times.

I appreciate her blog; she's a gifted writer and

she experiences a slice of Niger life that I really don't.

This particular story broke my heart - maybe because I have seen glimpses

of this sort of tragic slice...

Woman not able, not allowed, discouraged to express any emotion when they lose.
And they do lose.
Often.
Lots.

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...listening to Mamata talk about burying five of her eleven babies, before they turned 2 ~

...watching my friend Tina going through the pain of an abusive, broken marriage to lose legally what little say she did have in the lives of her beautiful children ~

...sitting with Issoufou's widow and little boy - she couldn't have been more than 18 ~

...seeing our guard Amadou lose his first baby boy just weeks ago; then today the body of his little brother was returned to the family. He was killed when the UN forces with whom he served were ambushed down along the Liberian/Ivory Coast border ~

...little Zeinabou, our neighbor girl, severly handicapped after her encounter with cerebral malaria and meningitis, yet her family choosing life for her ~

...Elsie Mae's friend from church, Salamatou - who has recently lost fingers due to infections from simple cuts and scrapes while living out in the village and no access to medical care. She's not lost her sweet smile and delight in hugs and holding hands ~

And that list could go on and on and on...

Life in Niger is hard, so desperately hard, for her people.

I'm spoiled.

We Americans are selfish and spoiled...

I've seen.

I've no excuse.

Yet as I look at the priorities in my heart,

I'm still pleading,

"Lord, open my eyes...

...and change the priorities of my heart."