When I left Haiti, in the summer of 1986,
after doing some missionary work in the mountains with eighteen other
missionaries, in a small village called Ranquitte, I sat on the back of a small
truck, with the other missionaries, and the cross-eyed boy who had befriended
me during my stay, ran after the truck, waving his little hands and fingers as
I sat there looking at him the truck accelerating, the small face of the boy
began to move farther and farther away, clashed with the road and foliage and
dust, drawing him from my sight, enclosed in the powdered-earth of the road,
leaving upon me a sense of finality, irrevocable; yet he was wearing that expression,
questioning, yet unalarmed: willing, serene and weighty. He was no more than
eight years old I believe. Now it’s been twenty-six years since I’ve been back
to Haiti,
I plan on returning soon, thus he comes back to mind. I remember he did not want
me to leave; almost like a doglike devotion. Yes, the boy is now a man. And I
am an old man, where at that time I was perhaps closer to his age now, and more fit—so I haven’t got no time to waste, I
tell myself, if indeed I plan on going back: Plaster Naason, a dear friend, has
been asking for twenty-of those twenty-six years: “When you coming back? He
says, and I tell him, “I’m trying,” but here I am, still not in Haiti. His words are getting louder and louder in my
head though, and every time he asks, my heart is uplifted.
#3885 (4-26-2013)
