I can't count how many times Dadou told me, "Manman, mwen manke mouri jodi a wi." (Mama, I almost died today!) It was often enough that I no longer took the statement seriously. He was always claiming to have narrowly escaped a near-deadly accident, or contracted a near-fatal case of malaria. There was one time, however, when I did fear for his life. It was January 12, 2010.
After the 7.0 m earthquake that hit Haiti, I spent a miserable 48 hours without news from Dadou or anyone in his family. I remember laying on my bed and shaking with sobs as I imagined Dadou dead, or worse, trapped alive under piles of rubble where he would spend several days scared and in pain before dying all alone. My mother's-heart broke, because Dadou had been a son to me for many, many years.
Dadou drove me mad. I loved him, but he made me crazy. Sometimes, I would get so angry at him that I wouldn't even recognize the person yelling at him. But then, he'd write a note explaining why I needed to be patient with him or compose a poem using the letters of my name and leave it on my pillow. Or, he'd bring me a token of reconciliation - such as an icy cold Prestige or a plate of griot and pikliz. And he'd make promises about how he was going to change and how happy he was going to make me. I'd melt, but slowly.
It was sometime in the afternoon of January 14 that I was finally able to reach someone in Haiti who could verify for me that Dadou had survived the earthquake. It was another day before I finally heard his voice. In the weeks leading up to the earthquake, Dadou had been suffering from severe back pain, so bad in fact, that he had taken to walking with a stick for support. A couple of days prior to the earthquake, he became bedridden. On the day of the quake, a friend came to help Dadou make a trip to the doctor's. They managed to carry him from his one-room apartment and get him into a vehicle. Dadou was in the process of returning home when the quake struck. His description of that time was horrendous! He told me that the dust from the collapsed buildings was so thick and heavy that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He had been in a tap tap (public transportation vehicle with an open back side) when the quake struck. Several people in the tap tap were badly injured. It would be several days before Dadou was able to make it back to his apartment and when he did, he found nothing but a block-wide pile of rubble. Everyone who had been in the building died. I felt myself go weak when I realized that had Dadou not gone to see the doctor that day, I would have lost him. I didn't know then that my relief was merely a respite....
Over the next three years, Dadou continued to do things that made me happy and things that made me furious. And I continued to love him. He helped me deliver supplies and aid to victims of the earthquake and at night we slept on blankets under the stars surrounded by strangers because it was unsafe to sleep in buildings. He helped me with the logistics of getting two little girls whose mother died in the earthquake and whose father died from AIDS, adopted by an American family. He drove me to appointments when I was in Haiti and ran errands and made deliveries for me when I was in the States. We made plans for a future that involved him coming to the States where I would cook lasagna for him and take him on long road trips to see America. His future was filled with promises to help me shovel snow in the winter and rake leaves in the fall. The year he turned 30, he hoped to marry (although he did not have a bride picked out yet!) and I was going to be the "marraine" at his wedding and witness as he pledged to love and honor his bride.
The bullet that eventually took his life, took his leg first. His right leg had to be amputated just below the hip, leaving him just a couple inches of stump. When the doctor told him that they were going to have to amputate his leg, he said "Well, better to lose my leg than to lose my life." I never got a chance to talk with him after the accident but his sister tells me that he was upbeat and encouraging to those around him, especially his mother.
I talked to his sister on the morning of February 8. She had left the hospital to run some errands but she told me that Dadou was doing much better than the day before, when he had had to be put on dialysis and had been in a lot of pain. I understood her to say that when she got back to his hospital room, she would call me so I could talk to him. I spent the day waiting. And waiting. And waiting...... Around 5:00 that afternoon, I got a call telling me that he had passed away during an emergency operation to remove more of his leg. When I talked to his sister later that evening she asked me, "Why didn't you call? Dadou was waiting for your call."
It seems that I misunderstood her and this misunderstanding robbed me of my chance to tell Dadou how much I loved him, to thank him for the years of happiness he'd given me, to remind him of the lives that were changed because of his passing through. Although I had purchased a plane ticket and was planning to be with him in a matter of days, I decided not to attend his funeral because I felt it would be a better use of the money to help with his medical and funeral expenses. Many of my friends did attend though, including my friend, Romel, who told me that never in his life had he seen so many people attend a funeral. There were hundreds of people who were not even able to enter the church, it was so crowded! Dadou simply did not know a stranger. Everyone he met became a friend. Dadou had a hard life, he sometimes would go all day without finding anything to eat. Yet, when he did have, whether it was money, food, or even the shirt on his back, he would share without hesitating with someone in greater need. In spite of living in difficult circumstances, he loved life and although he sometimes felt discouraged, he looked forward with enthusiasm and hope to tomorrow. In all the years I knew him, he never once said no to any favor I asked of him. He was loyal, compassionate, funny, clever, and loving.
It's going on three months since Dadou passed away. My body is going through the motions of living a normal life and I'm finally able to think about him without crying, but he's still there, in my heart and in my head, every second of every day. I hope Dadou knew how much he meant to me. I had a reasonable expectation of spending many, many more years together and I certainly never thought he'd leave this life before I. His death has made personal the mantra to "seize the day." I have this moment right now, but I may not have the next. I hope I'm effective at letting the people who remain in my life know how much they mean to me - every second of every day!
