Natasha

It was approx. 11:45 pm as I was standing at the airport in Entebbe with Randy (one of our teachers from the U.S.), waiting for Robert Beasley, Andrew Barlow and the White family to come through the doors. They all had rides from the airport, I just wanted to greet them on behalf of our family as they first set foot on Ugandan soil. My phone rang, which is always a bad thing at that hour. It was Augustine, the Head of Childcare at Cherish. He was calling to let me know that Natasha was not well and needed to be taken to the hospital. He was calling to see if I could take her since he was in Kampala, about one hour away. Since I was at the airport I called Leah and asked her to ask Bo to take her. (Kate was not doing well and she needed to stay home minding her.) Bo agreed, and took the car over to Natasha’s house to pick her up.

About 20 minutes later the White’s came through the door, minus Rex as he was standing at the lost baggage counter. Terri informed us that Robert and Andrew were also there as well.

As we were waiting to greet the others, my phone rang. It was Bo. There was panic in his voice.
“Dad, you need to come right now. Natasha is not waking up.”
I told Randy that we needed to go and off we went. About 60 seconds later my phone rings again. It is Bo.
“Dad, she died.”
“What? What do you mean she died?”
“The doctor said she didn’t make it.”
I replied, “I will be there as soon as I can.” Click!

I am not sure how fast I was driving, but I could not get there quick enough. The medical center where Bo was calling from was only a few miles away, but it felt like it took forever. As I pulled in the parking lot, the only car there was ours. The back doors were open, with Bo standing there, next to the open door. Natasha’s mom, Auntie Margaret, was leaning on the hood of the car. As I pulled next to the car I could see Natasha’s body laying in the back seat. I bolted out of the car, hugged Bo and went to find Natasha’s pulse, praying the doctor had made a mistake – no mistake, there was no pulse.

I told Bo, Auntie Margaret and Randy that we were going to pray. We prayed for about 30 minutes as we pleaded with God to bring Natasha back to life. I knew He could, and really felt as I prayed, that He would, but He didn’t. I don’t know why. From my perspective, what would bring Him more glory than if she had sat up in the back of that car? Apparently something else, because she never sat up.

As we sat there praying I was amazed at what was happening with my son. When I rolled up in the car next to him he looked like a deer in headlights. Shock, disbelief, and fear were all over my boys face. We started to pray and something different came over him. He was standing next to me, with his hand on Natasha, calling on God to raise her from the dead and I heard compassion, power and faith in his voice. God was doing a work in him as he leaned into that car and prayed.

After we prayed he started to tell me what had transpired over the past hour or two:

“We (Auntie Margaret and Bo) put her in the car and she seemed sick, but OK. We helped her into the back seat and she lay down to sleep on the way to the hospital. We then drove up our dirt road. As we got to the main highway she coughed a weird cough. We pulled into the medical center parking lot and tried to wake her up and she didn’t wake up. As Auntie Margaret kept trying I called you dad as I ran in to get the doctor. He came out, checked for her pulse and said she didn’t make it and walked back into the clinic, leaving her in the back of the car.”

My heart still breaks for Bo having to be the one to endure those moments. He is an amazing kid, man really, and I have no doubt God will use this in his life (He has already), but for my boy to be standing there in the parking lot with Natasha lying in the back seat and her mom crying on the hood of the car is something a father doesn’t ever want his son to have to endure. Death came while Natasha was in his care.

Now what do we do? In America the body is taken into the hospital, we go and start ministering to the family and making arrangements for the funeral. But the body is still in the back of our car, it is about 1:00 am and we at Cherish have never lost a child. The rest of the leadership team had arrived by now and we sat and talked about what comes now. We decided to send Bo back with Leah and Larissa to start ministering to those who already know something is up. When all the cars of the leadership team leave in the middle of the night, people know something is not right. Then myself, Augustine and Rachel decided that we needed to go to the government hospital in Entebbe to get a death certificate and get the body prepared for burial.

The ride to the hospital, as I drove our car, alone, with Natasha’s body in the back seat was an odd one to say the least. It seems so cliché to say it was a surreal moment, but I don’t have any other words or ways to describe it. It felt like this shouldn’t be happening, this shouldn’t be me, and most importantly, this shouldn’t be one of our kids in the back of our car.

As I entered the parking lot of the hospital the guard asked why I was coming. I didn’t know what to say, so I told him that I had a dead girl in the back seat. He calmly said OK and opened the gate. My only thought at the moment, “Is this another day at the office for this man? Does this happen so often that there is no reaction from him anymore?”

The nurse met us at the car and told me to carry her into the hospital (I use this term very loosely – Ugandan government run hospitals are not a pretty place). I picked her up and instantly realized her body had completely let loose and her bowels had emptied. As I laid her down, in her soiled clothes, on a bare metal table, I just kept thinking how she deserved more than this. The back of my car, a metal table, and the conditions of this hospital – I know she is dead, but her life was worth more than this.

Despite the deplorable conditions of the hospital, the nurse on duty that night was so nice. She gave me a place to wash-up and asked Rachel to help her clean-up Natasha.

After some discussion, the nurse informs us we must take the body to Mulago, the government hospital in Kampala, for an autopsy, a death certificate and proper preparation for the body to be buried. We decide that I should go back to Cherish and Rachel and Augustine will take the body about an hour away. It is now around 3:00 am.

Driving into Cherish, the heaviness hits like a ton of bricks. The place has literally had the life sucked out of it and everyone who is up (all the staff and all of the older kids) is in shock. I step into Natasha’s home where Leah, Larissa, our house moms and all of our older girls are sitting. No words are being spoken, but much sadness is being communicated. I sit down with our older girls, asking them if they have any questions, and answering their questions straightforward and honest. There are many tears. We spend time praying together and just sitting in the silence and the pain.

The sun is starting to rise and the rest of Cherish is waking up. Rachel and Augustine have since returned, having left Natasha’s body at Mulago. We are still sitting in Natasha’s home and in walks Vicky, Natasha’s blood sister. Joselyn, the house mom, sits her on her lap and starts to explain to her, in Lugandan (Vicky doesn’t know English), what had happened the previous night. Vicky has no response. She just stares off into the distance, answering what questions she is asked. Vicky gets off Joselyn’s lap and goes onto Leah’s – still no real response from Vicky. We as a leadership team spend the next few hours praying and talking to children and staff – heart wrenching to say the least.

We gather as a staff to talk about what is next. Natasha’s body must be picked up, we must prepare for the all-night vigil that will now take place at Cherish with Natasha’s body and we must contact Natasha’s relatives (she has an aunt) and let them know what has happened.

It is decided Augustine and I will head back to Mulago to purchase a casket and pick up the body. Augustine slept in the car as he and I made the hour drive into Kampala. Once we arrived at Mulago, I woke up Augustine and he directed me to the mortuary. The best way I can describe the mortuary is by likening it to a loading dock. No, it isn’t like a loading dock, it is a loading dock. There are cars backed up to the dock, either delivering dead bodies, or taking them. You see, there are no cemeteries here in Uganda. Everyone buries their family on family land. When someone dies, you bring the body to Mulago for an autopsy and formaldehyde injections (to preserve the body for the all-night vigil and the trip to the village for burial).

We step up to the desk and present our “receipt”…and then we wait. Meanwhile, people are coming and going.

I was struggling with what I should be feeling at this moment. There seemed to be no grief anywhere around me. Many people delivering bodies and picking up bodies, all done as very normal business transactions. Why were there no tears? Are these just hired hands to move the bodies or are these family members receiving goods and services from the local mortuary?

A blue police pick-up truck backs up along the line of cars. In the back are two benches where the police officers sit – maybe about eight of them. As the truck reaches the edge of the dock, they jump out, drop the tailgate and pull out a dead man by his ankles. He is placed on a metal gurney and rolled in; furthering my confusion as I am trying to figure out this cultures view of death, which also reveals their view of life.

Shortly after the police truck drives away, having spent only about 60 seconds delivering their “package”, our name is called. Augustine and I go in and receive the death certificate. Cause of death: a rare form of meningitis. The one who performed the autopsy looks at us and says, “This child was not sick for long, was she? I am sure it came and she died suddenly.” We shook our heads in agreement, paid our $20.00, received the death certificate and were led to the room where Natasha was. She was wrapped up in a white sheet, lying in the casket. A couple of guys helped us load her into our car and told us as we were leaving they had no Formaldehyde, so we must go back to the government hospital in Entebbe to get the body prepared for burial. Yes, this is the place we were just at the night before.

Our 1 ½ drive back to Entebbe was full of traffic, Augustine napping, Jesus Culture playing o the radio and hunger. I asked Augustine if he wanted to stop and get something to eat. Drive-thru’s and fast-food are non-existent in Uganda, so we stopped at a little roadside grocery store. We spent the next 20 min. sitting in the parking lot drinking water, and eating crackers and ice cream – Me, Augustine and Natasha. I thought just driving around town with her in the casket in the back was a bit strange, but sitting in the parking lot eating ice cream was just plain weird.

The hospital in Entebbe was a flurry of activity, compared to the night before. We were directed where to park and waited for instructions on where to go for the formaldehyde. All of a sudden a man shows up at the window of the car, and he says he is the one to inject the body with the formaldehyde. I recognize him and realize he is the gate guard from the night before.
“Are you the one who will do it?”
“Yes, I am the one.”
“Where do we go?”
“You can stay here. I will do it with her in your car.”

I open up the back door, we remove the casket cover, unwrap Natasha’s body and he starts his work. During the autopsy she had been cut across the top of her head and from her neck down to her pelvis, and meticulously sewed back up and now he was going to start injecting her. This girl that lays in front of me, who just hours ago, was so full of life, is now nothing but a shell, nothing but a vessel that used to hold Natasha. He took a large syringe and, what seems like randomly, injects about 15 syringes full of the formaldehyde into her body, rewraps her, puts the lid back on, jumps out of the car, collects his $25, hops on a motorcycle and leaves.

We drove into Cherish and everyone stopped what they were doing – all kids and all staff, and just stared at us. They knew where we had been and they could see the casket in the car. It was as if time stood still as we wound down the road from the gate to Rachel’s house, where the viewing would be. Men immediately surrounded the car when we stopped and carried the casket into the house. We set her on the floor in the middle of the room and in a matter of minutes the room was full of children and adults. I have never in my life heard wailing and crying like I did that day. Never! For the next couple of hours the normal peace and quiet that fills Cherish and the sounds of kids playing was full of crying, wailing and pain. We sat in the room comforting our children. Words were not adequate, so we hugged, rubbed backs and held our children. Some of them wept uncontrollably while others sat and stared at Natasha’s casket.

As the day started to turn to night things outside were a buzz. Wood was being brought for a bonfire, fires were started for cooking, mats and blankets were being delivered for sleeping, all the while the mourning continued in that room. As darkness fell, the fires lit up the night. People were everywhere. Everyone was talking, praying, singing, eating and mourning. Upon a death in Uganda, an all-night vigil takes place the night afterwards. Men, women and children either sit around the casket or around the bonfire All. Night. Long.

It was approx. 2:30 am when the storm blew in. It was one of those Uganda thunderstorms that is like none other. The wind came out of nowhere, and in a many of minutes you could hear the rain coming. People scattered everywhere – under nearby porches, up to our school, inside houses, wherever they could go to get away from the rain. A group of women bedded down in our living room the remainder of the night as our family retired to our beds. I looked out the window to see the last vestige of the bonfire disappear from the downpour of rain.

The next morning most of Cherish (except for the real young kids, a couple of moms and security) boarded two buses and headed to Mukono for the burial. Some of Natasha’s relatives have some land there and wanted her buried on their property. Three hours later we arrived. After greeting the family we went to the gravesite to see if we could help. The gravediggers were already there. Every village has a group of men like this – Men who dig the grave and then line it with cement and bricks. They look at their job as a service to the community, but they expect to be paid… in liquor. When we showed up one of the gravediggers asked me if I had the alcohol. I told him I didn’t and they stopped working. They were clearly already very drunk. In a matter of minutes our guys sprang into action. They were digging, hauling water, and lining the grave. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

The service was much like a service in the states – A preacher honoring the deceased and encouraging all of those who don’t know Jesus to do something about that. A few people shared, a group of our girls sang, and the casket was buried. It was a heartbreaking experience.

Having officiated my fair share of funerals in the states I have seen many mourners. In the states it is a quiet affair. People get out of their cars and walk up to the church or gravesite without saying anything. They sit and say nothing. There are tears, but they are hidden behind glasses and under hats. There is something to be said about the way Ugandan’s mourn. There is something to be said for the outpouring of emotion, the sitting with the casket for hours allowing the idea to really sink in that they are dead, gone, not coming back. In the states we whisk the body away, and the next time it is seen it is dressed, made up with cosmetics to look still alive. Not in Uganda – it is raw, real, loud, and I might add, probably healthier. Sometimes our advanced culture advances a bit too much.

The problem comes the next day, after the body is buried. The whole situation is never talked about again. I think this is where things turn a bit unhealthy as life goes on as if the death never happened. We at Cherish have done our best, and continue to try to help our kids and staff mourn. We continue to talk of Natasha, try to leave space for questions and have hired a counselor to come out and talk with them. Be praying for us as we continue to walk this journey. Natasha needs no prayer, but our kids and staff sure do.