MY PHURBA

Word Carnival ... "Disappoint"
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Until today, I had other "disappoint" focuses: teeth pulled last Thursday after a couple years of fighting my body and fussing about it, putting it off, scared; the yucky flu hitting on Friday; an increasingly reduced energy level that's been kicking my tail since about a year ago and interferes more often from letting me be out and about. Annoying, and, yes, disappointing.

And then yesterday, when I saw my dear Phurba at the baby-dedication event, my heart just faded. It's been sad ever since.

I've known Phurba for 1-1/2 years. He's about 25; has had seizure brain-tumor problems since he was 8. When his parents came from Nepal, a year ago last Fall, it was anticipated that the tumor-issue would be addressed soon, since we have great hospitals. When I first met him shortly after their arrival, he entered my heart. For some reason, when he saw me, he'd smile. Sometimes he would reach out and grab my hand.

He had the surgery last Spring on Thursday, April 7th. One of my huge blessings was that when he became conscious Saturday morning the first thing he said, in Nepali, was, "Where's Joanne?" His brother, Bijay, called me, I hopped into the car and whipped down to the hospital. When I reached ICU, he was "out" again. He was released a few days later. A couple times the doctors seemed to be very pleased, convinced life was going to change for him.

As understandably as possible, he had left Buddhism and come to the Lord. On May 29th, with a number of his family members, he was baptized. What a joyful day!


Last Summer, Phurba's brother, Sai, asked me to help about 15 family and friends go to our city's great zoo. He asked me to drive my van and lead two other cars across town. We were crammed with kids, parents, and grandparents. What was funny? I was the tallest of the large group, and only non-Asian member. To make sure they could see me when we were moving around, I wore my pink sparkly ball cap.

Phurba spent the whole day with me, holding my hand, him yanking me one direction, me pulling him the other. Both of us laughing. Sai and I took him with us on the Skyfari chairlift. We were a little concerned about his dizziness and his fear... if he wanted off while flying over trees, we'd be in real trouble. We did it, anyway; we put him between us, tightly. Oh, and he DID have fun. He'd point down at the giraffes, the birds, and monkeys and hippos and laugh. Sai and I laughed, too.

The last event was eating ice cream. It was a mess with a number of them, especially one family that had just arrived from Nepal a couple days earlier, and had not been ice cream eaters. And, for the whole group, eating ice cream cones outside in the heat was not what any of them had previously experienced. Phurba got it all over him. And, again, we all laughed.

Life has changed. He had lost weight by this summer; he has lost much more. He is pale. Dizziness is almost constant. He can't eat much and he vomits frequently. He sleeps a lot. My blessing? When I walk in their front door and he sees me, he often runs staggery across the living room and throws his arms around me... and laughs. When his family has me sit down near their dining room table, he often comes over and sits cross-legged on the floor right in front of me so he can watch me. He speaks almost NO English.. can count a bit, can say "hi", and can say "Love". I know fewer than 10 of their Nepali words. So, Phurba and I can't say any more words than those very few.

But we do love each other. Nothing else counts.

My heart of disappointment is simply what I described about Phurba's present life. Thin, pale, dizzy -- not improving at all; gradually becoming worse.

I had no idea when the Lord began to drop these many Bhutanese people into my life almost 2 years ago that I would be so in love, so filled with joy so often, laughing so much, and rarely...very rarely...so disappointed.

I must rely on one of my mottoes: God is BIGGER!! I know that the worst that can happen is that when we are both in heaven, Phurba and I will spend time together ... and we'll talk, really TALK... and we will LAUGH!