A letter to my life.
This was the title that Rebecca, a lovely and broken 16 year old guest of Living Room, wrote to begin a composition about her life’s story. She penned a letter in her notebook and addressed it to me: “Dear Aunt,” she wrote. Each sentence following is hard to read as Rebecca, filled with the hurt of being rejected by those who should have loved her, tells of being passed from one relative to another.
Her mother left. Her father drank. Her grandmother didn’t want her. By the time she was 14 years old, she found herself working full-time as a maid in a stranger’s home, caring for three small children.
But then she became too sick to be useful.
Her words are piercing as she tells of the grief she experienced in watching her baby sister die of the same virus that has infected her since birth. HIV/AIDS, she writes – sickness, sadness, death.
Rebecca arrived to Kimbilio Hospice several weeks ago terribly sick. She was simply too weak to walk or speak. A young girl, in a little body, so broken by the world. Her concerns and troubles at 16 years old seemed so cruel and hard to overcome. She came to us in need of physical care but also desperate for love and acceptance. She needed to be told, and with more than words, over and over again that her life is significant, that her story matters. She needed a place of refuge and a people who would show her the love of God.
Day by day, life and strength are returning to Rebecca. She is nearly ready to leave the hospice, and we are planning for her to stay close by, to begin school at a nearby boarding school. As I reflect about Rebecca, my prayer is that someday she will be able to write another letter about her life, and the themes of rejection and loss will be replaced with redemption and unexpected joy. Please join me in praying this for Rebecca.
In closing her letter, Rebecca wrote: Sincerely, your girl. My friends, thank you, as always, for your generous support that enables us to do this very important work.
Sincerely, Juli
