Every room in my house in Berkeley had something to remind me of Haiti. The painting from Cité Soleil hung in my bedroom. A stone carving of a woman holding a baby was on my kitchen counter. Pictures of Fr. Gerry, Manmi Dèt, Nennenn, and the children of the food program were taped to the borders of my computer screen. I thought about them all the time.

After the trip with Luke, I felt an urgency to tell people what I had experienced. Between packing lunches, driving Luke to and from school, and running my health and well-ness business, I sent e-mails and made phone calls to friends, describing the school, the boy who took his shower in the rain, and the children who came to eat at the food program. I wrote about Manmi Dèt and Nennenn and their dedication to providing healthy meals every Sunday. I shared Fr. Gerry’s words, Piti piti na rive, and his vision of hope.

I also told them I had decided to create a nonprofit corporation, with the help of an attorney friend, so I could raise the funds needed for the food program. It was clear from my visits that the members of St. Clare’s were determined to keep it going, and so was I. I needed to think of a name for the nonprofit, and one day while I was praying, two words came to mind as clearly as if they’d been written on a piece of paper: What if?

Before I could wonder what this meant, a stream of “what if” questions came to me. What if every child in the Tiplas Kazo neighborhood had three meals a day? What if every child had not only enough food, but clean water, education, shelter, and health care? What if providing these necessities to children was the world’s priority? What if the economic and political systems that perpetuate poverty were transformed? One “What if?” question after another entered my mind, pointing to possibilities and hope.

When I opened my eyes, I knew one thing for sure. The name. In January 2001, one year after my first visit to Haiti, the What If? Foundation was founded, and I became its volunteer director, administrator, and fund-raiser.

A friend sent an e-mail commenting on what a burden I must feel taking on the responsibility to raise the money needed to feed 500 children once a week. It was a huge commitment, she said, since whether they ate or not would depend on me. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Sharing the story of the children in Tiplas Kazo and collecting funds for the food program didn’t feel like a burden. It was a fulfillment, the new purpose I’d been searching for since Rich died. It was an opportunity to help others in a very personal way, and it made me extremely happy. I didn’t worry about the future or what it might mean to keep things going month after month. From the moment I met Fr. Gerry and heard his vision of a food program, I felt swept up in the flow of something beautiful. I didn’t feel the need to question or worry about it. I just went with it.

As the weeks passed, checks continued to arrive in my mailbox—$50, $25, $100. A friend’s daughter sent the contents of her piggy bank. Another friend sent the proceeds from a bake sale. Business associates held a raffle. My former church in Wisconsin sent $1,000 and made a commitment to support the program annually. A friend’s Rotary Club sent $1,500. Friends of friends, strangers to me, sent checks too. I deposited the money in the What If? Foundation’s bank account in Berkeley and then wired it to the food program’s account in Haiti. Fr. Gerry withdrew what was needed and gave it to Nennenn, so she could shop at the farmers’ market. Meticulous notes were kept describing how every penny was spent. Our simple system worked.

Each time I received a check, I multiplied the amount by two and wrote the donor letting them know how many meals they’d just made possible. Ten dollars fed twenty children. One hundred dollars fed 200 children. At 50 cents a meal, every check made a difference. Donors wrote that they liked the simplicity and intimacy of the program. By knowing me and hearing about my experiences, they understood the hunger of the children in a more real and personal way, and they were grateful to be able to help.

I forwarded e-mails from Fr. Gerry to keep them connected and informed.

Dear Margaret,

The food program remains a great help to the hungry ones. We may have to change the name Sun-day to Food-day. Food may be understood as both spiritual and material. Thanks a lot to you and to all the friends who freely and lovingly are helping. Kenbe fém! (Hold on firm.)

Gerry

Dear Margaret,

The Sunday meal is a standard program now for the needy children, teenagers, and some adults. After the church worship it is the greatest act of love for me—to help feed the hungry ones. It is tough some days, but it is a must. Jesus loves, loves, loves it. The children appreciate it so much. They come from all over. They walk miles for a hot, blessed meal served with God’s love within us all.

Gerry

Each time I heard from Fr. Gerry, I felt my heart longing to return to Haiti. On a spring afternoon, as I listened to an audiotape of the St. Clare’s choir that Fr. Gerry had given me and stared at a picture of Manmi Dèt, I got an idea. What if Luke and I went to Haiti for the summer? Manmi Dèt had invited me to come back for as long as I wanted, and assured me it would not be an imposition. I’d never before considered going for more than a week at a time, but the thought of being in Port-au-Prince with Luke for a couple of months intrigued me. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, from a whirlwind pace that seemed to fill every second of every day—fund-raising, working on my business, and taking care of Luke. I felt drained, unable to find balance, and I could feel the onset of burnout. A summer in Haiti could help me rejuvenate.

The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea. During a longer visit, I could learn some Creole and become more connected to the community, and it would be an incredible experience for Luke. But more than anything else, I just wanted to be with the members of St. Clare’s. I e-mailed Fr. Gerry, who wrote back that Manmi Dèt was waiting for us. “This is your home,” she said.

I started to write down what it would take for the trip to happen. As the list got longer and longer, it seemed more and more crazy. But it felt so right. I kept writing. Luke would be out of school in mid-June. Check. My sister could look after my house and mail. Check. With proper planning, my business could run on its own for a while. Check.

Family and friends were surprised when I told them my plans. They were supportive, but I could tell they were concerned for our safety. I reassured them that things were calm politically in Haiti. The majority of Haitians were very supportive of President Aristide, whom they had elected a few months earlier in a landslide victory. Although living conditions remained exceedingly difficult, there was relative security and peace throughout the country. It was a good time to visit.

I told Luke, who immediately started talking about introducing the St. Clare kids to his favorite sport—baseball. His Little League season had just begun, so he spread the word at the fields and started a collection for extra gloves, hats, jerseys, and balls. It grew every week.

The plans for spending the summer in Port-au-Prince brought a renewed sense of energy and excitement to my days. Time passed quickly, and before I knew it, Luke and I left Berkeley with a small suitcase of clothes, malaria pills, and four duffel bags packed with school supplies and baseball gear. I just knew I was doing the right thing. Everything had fallen into place.

We arrived at Manmi Dèt’s from the airport just as Nennenn was returning from the farmers’ market with baskets of ripe mangoes, bananas, pineapples, melons, and oranges. The family was getting ready to make a fruit salad for a special meal that was planned for priests visiting St. Clare’s. The air was warm and sticky, and the summer sun beat down with intensity. I quickly changed into my lightest sundress and joined Manmi Dèt and the others under the awning. We ate fried plantains, my favorite Haitian treat. I felt right at home, as though I’d never left.

Chairs and cement blocks were arranged in a circle, with the fruit piled in the center. Manmi Dèt motioned for me to sit next to her on the blue couch with no legs. She handed me a small knife and an orange. With their loving companionship, all the gorgeous fruit, and a slight breeze waving the palm fronds overhead, it felt for a moment like I was back in the Cayman Islands, except that I’d just come from the airport and had seen the miserable living conditions for the millions who lived in Port-au-Prince.

I studied the piles of fruit and found myself calculating how long it would take to prepare all this. Fruit juice dripped down my arms and beads of sweat formed on my forehead as I whipped through my mound of oranges, peeling the skins with focus and determination. I was excited about the progress I was making.

I finally took a break to sip a bottle of Haitian cola Manmi Dèt had given me, and looked around. It was obvious the Dépestre women and I did not share the same rhythm. They’d hardly made a dent in their sides of the pile. They laughed and joked and talked and teased. Slowly and carefully they cut each mango and melon into the tiniest pieces I’d ever seen. I couldn’t help but wonder why they were cutting them so small. At this pace, we’d be here all afternoon.

And then I remembered—that was the point. I remembered the poudre d’amour dessert that was served in 500 plastic bags. I remembered the reason I’d come to Haiti. There was no need to rush or to multitask. I took a deep breath and started again, this time trying to cut my oranges as delicately as Manmi Dèt cut her mangoes.

But I couldn’t do it. My hands just sped up, as if in a race. I was locked into a different speed, and realized it might take the whole two months just to stop my compulsion to check things off a list and find ways to do more things in less time. I was an expert at folding laundry while making business calls—with a headset so both hands were free—and monitoring dinner on the stove at the same time. I was always in a hurry, trying to get as much done as possible before Luke got home from school. But now I was in Haiti. I didn’t have a day planner or a list of to-dos or any major responsibilities.

I put down my orange, took another sip of cola, and observed my friends. Very delicately, with extremely dull knives, they cut into the succulent fruit and really seemed to enjoy it. Every seed was removed, every extraneous piece of pulp pulled out.

Manmi Dèt was in charge of mangoes. She positioned each one in a way that made it easy to run the knife down each side of the pit, separating the pit from the fruit. Then she held up a section and carved lines in it from top to bottom and then side to side, like tic-tac-toe. When she bent the mango skin back, the chunks of fruit popped right up. Then she cut along the skin, and the tiny squares fell right into the bowl. She made it look so easy.

I watched Magga, Manmi Dèt’s daughter-in-law, work on cutting pineapples. Instead of adding her tiny chunks to the bowl that held my cut oranges and Manmi Dèt’s mango, she poured all her hard work into a strainer and mashed it into juice. So much effort to make those tiny pieces, only to turn them into juice. With a wooden spoon, she gently pressed the pineapple against the strainer in a circular motion until the sweet drops squeezed out of the tiny mesh and onto the growing mound of fruit salad. When she was done, she scraped the pulp out of the strainer and into another bowl. Nothing was ever wasted. I was sure it would be eaten later.

Luke slipped in between Manmi Dèt and me on the couch for a snack. He’d just finished playing soccer with the neighborhood kids, who had been waiting for him in the yard when we arrived. Magga handed him a big piece of watermelon, which he devoured enthusiastically, placing his rind in the pile with the other discarded rinds, peels, and pits. Magga reached down and handed it back to him. She pointed to several pink patches still left on the rind. In broken English, she said with a smile, “Luke, you waste.”

Luke nodded. He scraped off the remaining melon with his spoon. As I sat there watching this interaction, I thought of all the times I’ve made fruit salad, throwing out half the fruit with the rinds and peels because it was easier than taking the time to really scrape it off or cut carefully around a pit. I thought about our abundant life and how we took food for granted. We had no real concept of waste or hunger.

Our fruit salad production went on for hours. I sat in awe, watching the Dépestre women work their magic without food processors or cutting boards, hoping my visit would help me become more like them. Finally, Manmi Dèt gave the final stir, mixing together the thousands of orange, yellow, and red pieces of Haitian fruit we’d sliced and diced into a rainbow of color and texture. Magga’s pineapple juice coated it all and glistened in the sun. We all stepped back to admire our work. This was the most magnificent fruit salad I’d ever seen—all the more so because of the loving way in which it was prepared.

Manmi Dèt and I left her house at four in the afternoon every weekday and walked through the neighborhood and up the steep hill to St. Clare’s Church for Mass. Luke preferred to stay at home with Nennenn. There weren’t any sidewalks, so we made our way in a zigzag pattern around dozens of one-room, concrete-block houses. This was our special time. Just the two of us. I looked forward to it each day.

Wearing colorful dresses she’d made herself, a matching hat, and low church heels, Manmi Dèt always dressed up for Mass. She held my hand the whole way and helped me navigate around broken glass, rusted cans, mud, discarded tires, and jagged pieces of concrete. As we passed her neighbors, she greeted everyone with an enthusiastic “Bonjou!” and a smile. “Bonjou, Manmi Dèt,” they’d call back, waving. When she introduced me, I felt warmly received. If I was a friend of Manmi Dèt’s, I was their friend.

The neighborhood felt calm and peaceful despite the rugged circumstances. There was a strong sense of community. Most everyone stood or sat outside their homes—all ages—chatting and watching the children. They all knew each other. The homes were so close together it wasn’t clear whose property we were on as we passed through. I tried to peek inside the houses, but they were dark. Sometimes I made out a small wooden table and chair. I rarely saw anyone cooking or eating.

We often passed kids Luke’s age kicking a deflated soccer ball around. I didn’t see many toys or bikes, and never a stroller, a swing, or anything electronic like a Game Boy. We passed women squatting outside their homes, scrubbing clothes with a bar of soap and pail of water. How they got their clothes so clean was a mystery to me. On Sundays, when the church was packed, everyone’s dresses, shirts, and pants showed no signs of the dust that seemed to fly everywhere and coat everything.

“Attention,” Manmi Dèt would say in French, pointing out loose, slippery rocks. She’d tighten her grip and help me steady myself when I jumped over big pools of mud. When we got to one of Tiplas Kazo’s main streets, Manmi Dèt would hold up her purse to shield us from the clouds of dust created by passing tap-taps and cars.

On the same corner every day, next to a family who sold grilled corn, waited Manmi Dèt’s good friend, Irène. Irène had a radiant smile and a beautiful face that didn’t show the stress of life in this city. She accompanied us up the final road to St. Clare’s. It was steep, but Manmi Dèt and Irène were in amazing shape for women in their 70s. They didn’t even break a sweat. When we finally arrived at the top of the hill and walked through the brown wooden doors of St. Clare’s, it was close to 4:30.

We always sat in a pew in the front left section of the sanctuary, the exact spot I chose each Sunday growing up in my dad’s church. There, waiting for us, were the same fifteen to twenty women, as though they’d never left. Faithful, committed, and holding their rosaries, they sat together and prayed every afternoon—some aloud, others silently. When Manmi Dèt arrived, the singing began.

Manmi Dèt had a great voice—not perfect in pitch, but strong and joyful. She loved singing and her enthusiasm encouraged everyone else to join in. There was no organ or piano, just these women singing a cappella. Manmi Dèt kept beat with her hand on the top of the pew in front of her. Sometimes they sang for fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour or more—it depended on when Fr. Gerry arrived. They just kept singing and praying until he walked out in his robe from behind the pulpit.

Not being Catholic or speaking Creole, I didn’t understand most of the service, but the energy of the women around me was always uplifting. Just hearing Fr. Gerry’s hopeful tone inspired me. Daily Mass became an important touchstone for me, a time to sit and feel.

The sanctuary was stiflingly hot. With no air-conditioning or even a fan, sweat poured down my face, neck, and back, mosquitoes always circling my ankles. After an hour or two, I’d get restless and thirsty, but I couldn’t jump up to get a drink of water—there were no water fountains. So I just sat there in the heat, my mouth dry and my stomach grumbling, and tried to quiet my mind so I could be fully present.

This is one of the reasons I visit Haiti—to make it personal. To feel uncomfortable—physically and emotionally, so that I remember. In Berkeley when I get hot, I turn on a fan. If I feel cold, I turn on the heat or grab a sweater. Thirsty? I turn on the faucet. Hungry? I open the refrigerator or go to the store. I never feel uncomfortable for more than a moment and can forget that these are real problems for others. Is being too comfortable one of the reasons the shade can be pulled down over an issue like world hunger, or hunger right in our own country? How can we get to a place where we care deeply about hunger or clean water—enough to act and make meaningful changes—when it’s not personal? When we ourselves are never hungry or thirsty and don’t actually see the suffering?

Mass always ended with the passionate prayer to St. Jude. I opened my palms and lifted my arms high above my head along with the other women. It didn’t take me long to learn the words. As the prayer closed, the intensity built as the women cried out for help. They prayed fiercely day after day for Haiti, even though it didn’t seem like the rest of the world ever heard them.

“Osekooooooooouuuuuuuuuuu.” S.O.S.

Manmi Dèt’s neighborhood didn’t have streetlights, so at night the only light came from the moon. Bedtime was early for Luke and me, because the electricity was usually not working. We tried to use the dim lightbulb on the side of the wall that hooked up somehow to Nennenn’s generator, to play cards or read, but it usually wasn’t bright enough.

Our room was hot, making it difficult for me to fall asleep. Luke had no trouble. He was exhausted from playing soccer with the neighborhood kids and fell asleep as quickly as he did at home. I was relieved that he transitioned so smoothly into life at the Dépestres. He seemed comfortable with the heat, loved the food, enjoyed the new friends he was making and the slow rhythm of his days. He didn’t even complain about the growing number of mosquito bites all over his body. He was quiet when it came to talking about the living conditions of people in the neighborhood. I knew he was taking it all in, and assumed he just hadn’t found the words to describe what he felt.

I often lay awake for hours listening to the sounds of the neighborhood—dogs fighting, roosters crowing, people singing at late-night church services, babies crying. Sometimes Manmi Dèt’s daughter Nérie would come over to say prayers with Manmi Dèt and Magga. I never actually saw them, but I guessed they were sitting around a table in the room just below me, perhaps with a candle between them. Sometimes they’d pray for an hour, sometimes longer. They’d start out quietly, whispering the rosary together, but then Nérie’s voice would rise as she shifted into other prayers. I got chills as I listened. I couldn’t understand a word, but the passion and faith in her voice as she called out to the heavens felt as though she was giving voice to the prayers of every hungry child and adult in Haiti.

Nighttime was a time for me to pray, too, and reflect on what I was experiencing. My mind replayed the places and people I’d seen. Each time I heard a child cry, I’d remember the 18-month-old at the orphanage and all the children asleep on dirt floors in Cité Soleil. A distant crack of thunder would bring back the awful image of shacks in Cité Soleil flooding with raw sewage after a heavy rain, and families having nowhere to go.

Sweaty and restless, I’d think about what it must be like for these children and their parents, but I could only let my mind go so far. I couldn’t imagine the heartache the mothers felt as they struggled to find food daily. To listen to their children cry from hunger, to watch them die from starvation or diarrhea. It was inconceivable to me. I listened to Luke’s breathing in the bed next to me and thought of our lives and how I’d never had to worry about these things, not even once. Someone told me that some of the mothers in Cité Soleil made clay biscuits for their children. It was all they had to feed them—dirt mixed with salt and vegetable shortening and baked in the sun.

When I couldn’t sleep, I’d get up and lean on the window-sill and look out into the blackness. Sometimes a tropical breeze touched my face, reminding me of the nights I loved as a child when I visited my grandparents in the Cayman Islands, listening to the sound of waves and feeling the Caribbean breeze through my bedroom’s screened window. I would spend my languid days playing in the sand, wading in the water, hunting for seashells, coconuts, and crabs. We went on picnics and I learned to snorkel. Every afternoon at 4:30, Grandma would serve fresh limeade from her tree and homemade chocolate chip cookies. My life had been idyllic and privileged.

Here in Port-au-Prince, even in the heat of a sleepless night, I lived in luxury compared to most Haitians. My toilet was hard to flush, but I had one. More than half of urban Haitians did not, and the percentage was much higher in the countryside. My lightbulb hardly lit the room, but I had electricity and a backup generator. Only a third of urban Haitians had electricity in their homes, and a fraction had generators. Again, the statistics were much worse in the countryside. I had my own room with a bed, sheet, and pillow. I ate two or three meals every day. I had plenty of bottled water and access to Nennenn’s cold-water shower. I had toilet paper and tampons.

Plus, I would be getting on a plane in a few weeks to fly back to the Bay Area, to my house with wood floors, painted walls, and furniture in every room. I had lamps and a computer, a full refrigerator and hot showers, a closet full of clothes and a car in my driveway. I had an education, a job, a doctor, and a dentist. I had everything I needed to live in comfort. The contrast was overwhelming. How could I reconcile the imbalance? I couldn’t. And what could be done to balance the vast inequalities in the world? In Haiti, I’d come face-to-face with the world’s poorest citizens—and knew they were part of the one billion people on our planet who live in extreme poverty, those who don’t have access to the basic needs for survival. I struggled with this reality and didn’t know what to do about it. These thoughts kept me awake at night.

Luke turned 9 on a Thursday. A surprise care package from a friend in Chicago arrived earlier in the week with party supplies—cake mix, frosting, candles, hats, and balloons. Early in the morning, Luke woke up, excited about the celebration we’d planned for the afternoon. Berry Philippe, Daphné, and a few other kids from St. Clare’s met us on Manmi Dèt’s porch at two o’clock. “Bòn fèt, Luke!” they shouted in unison.

A game of catch started out the party. The kids eagerly carried the bags of donated baseball gear into the yard. They each put on a jersey and cap and cracked up laughing as they practiced catching the ball in the glove. Baseball was big in the Dominican Republic, but it wasn’t played in Haiti. Soccer was the main sport.

Next was batting practice. Luke positioned a tee in the driveway, put a tennis ball on it, and took a big demonstration swing. I was afraid someone might get hurt with the bat, but I stayed in the background and let them play. Luke knew only a handful of Creole words. The Haitian kids knew about the same amount of English. But it seemed effortless for them to come together, share, cooperate, and have fun.

After an hour, Luke ran upstairs to get the soccer ball we’d brought.

“G - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò- L!”

“Goal” must be a universal word because they all screamed it at the same time when the ball made its way through the two chairs positioned as goal markers in Manmi Dèt’s yard.

Finally, sweaty and tired, the kids collapsed on the porch. Luke brought out a box of Knex, a Lego-like toy, which they eagerly examined. There were at least 100 small pieces, which, once assembled, would become a helicopter. Luke and I had tried several times to put it together, but it was too complicated. We’d followed the directions page by page, but still couldn’t get everything to fit together properly. The kids poured all the pieces in a pile on the porch. I watched them stare at the box and then at the pieces. Once in a while they consulted the diagrams in the directions. Within fifteen minutes, they had assembled the helicopter, perfectly.

The water balloon toss was the highlight of the party. Balloons flew around the yard. Screams. Laughter. Loud pops. Then chocolate cake. Nennenn baked it in her oven, the first time I ever saw her use it. Manmi Dèt and Magga joined as we gathered around the table to sing “Happy Birthday”—first in English, then in Creole, then in French. The cake was cut and put into the palms of our hands. I watched the kids savor every bite. Berry Philippe licked the frosting off his fingers and smiled. I imagined it had been a long time since he’d had chocolate.

As the day ended, Luke beamed as he waved good-bye to his friends. He looked older to me. Maybe it was the way he carried himself. Maybe it was a depth I saw in his eyes. He’d been exposed to poverty and hunger, and the privilege of experiencing another family in an intimate way. He loved Nennenn’s rice and beans, playing Go Fish with Daphné, and soccer with Berry Philippe and his friends. He had watched Manmi Dèt teach the neighborhood kids math on the green chalkboard tied to her porch railing, and sewing, with her foot-pedal machine. He felt confident walking to the corner store to buy his favorite Haitian cola—asking for it in Creole and paying for it with Haitian coins. Although he found church a little boring, he sat through many St. Clare Masses, observing the congregation’s faith, taking in their music and Fr. Gerry’s passionate sermons. He was welcomed by the parishioners with kisses and hugs. This is why I brought him to Haiti, to experience another culture and put his own life in perspective.

When I packed for this trip, I put two pairs of sandals, five sundresses, and one skirt and blouse for Mass in my suitcase. I had learned on my previous visits to Port-au-Prince that Haitian women usually don’t wear pants or shorts. I didn’t bring any makeup or a hairdryer. Only one pair of earrings. My theme was simplicity.

What became my favorite dress was a light-blue-and-white faded muumuu with pink lace trim that Manmi Dèt made for me. Not my usual style, but I loved it, even though it made me look pregnant. With daily temperatures in the upper 90s, the muumuu was perfect. Oversized, lightweight, sleeveless, hemmed just below the knee. My unshaven shins and armpits were exposed, but after a few days I didn’t care. I felt raw and liberated.

I always wore my muumuu on Sundays after the food program. After a long day of preparing and serving the meal, slipping into it felt cool and comforting. The fabric was worn and soft and seemed to hold the love Manmi Dèt had sewn into it when she made it for me.

I liked to spend Sunday evenings relaxing at Nennenn’s house. We’d pull a couple of straw chairs out to her porch and settle back to enjoy the stars and catch a breeze. Leaning back in our muumuus, we’d have a glass of cold water and chat about the day. Sundays were bittersweet—the satisfaction of seeing hundreds of children fed, combined with the sadness of the reality of their daily hunger.

One particularly hot and humid Sunday in late July, even in my muumuu, I was dripping with sweat.

“Let’s go for a swim,” Nennenn suggested, pointing to her new pool. It was tiny—about 12 feet by 8 feet—but full of refreshing water.

“I’ll get my suit,” I said.

“No, Margo. Just go in your dress.”

Swim in my muumuu? Nennenn took my hand and pulled me out of my chair, laughing as she ran to the pool. “Come on. Jump in.”

She was in the water in a flash, her purple muumuu floating around her. I hesitated, remembering all the insects and algae that lived in the pool. It didn’t have a filtering system and the water wasn’t changed very often. Oh, why not? What’s a little fungus? I thought. Plunging in—underwear, muumuu, and all—I felt about 8 years old. I don’t remember ever going swimming with my clothes on intentionally, even as a kid.

Nennenn and I laughed hysterically, not able to stop for the longest time. Suddenly, my eyes overflowed with tears, my mouth quivered, and my chest heaved as I laughed and cried at the same time. It surprised me. I wasn’t sure where the tears came from. It had been ages since I’d had so much fun. I couldn’t remember the last time. Somehow life had gotten so serious. And it was serious, especially in Haiti. The food program earlier that day had shown me that again. But it was more than that.

Maybe I was crying because I was overwhelmed by the love of the Dépestre family and the beauty of simple things like a soft faded muumuu and a plunge in the water with a dear friend. Or maybe because I was discovering more and more how unfair the world is, how cruel it can be. The disparity between my life and the lives of everybody I met in Tiplas Kazo weighed on me all the time. Feelings of joy and grief wove themselves throughout my days in Haiti. Little by little they seeped out, growing in intensity as the days passed. But in the pool they spilled over, soaking my already wet face with tears.

Nennenn and I settled side by side on the pool step with water up to our necks and our muumuus ballooning around us. We leaned our heads back and looked up at the stars. It had been quite a day.

As I stared at the night sky, a dream I’d had after Rich died came to mind. It was more like a visitation than a dream. It felt as real and clear as my time with Nennenn in the pool. In it, Rich handed me a letter about my past, present, and future. I knew it answered all my questions about his death and “why,” but I couldn’t decipher his handwriting, except for two words, written boldly and clearly at the bottom of the page: “Live life.”

Swimming in my muumuu under the stars after a full day in Tiplas Kazo, experiencing a full range of emotions, I felt as if I was moving on and growing strong in my own life, separate from him. My heart was healing and felt full and alive with the food program, the Dépestres, Fr. Gerry, and everyone at St. Clare’s. I felt I was finally starting to do what he’d asked of me: Live life.

AIlo, allo, hello,” Fr. Gerry said as he enthusiastically answered his cell phone. It rang often. I spent many days JL X driving with him in his jeep from place to place and was amazed by his energy and ability to coordinate dozens of projects. His parish stretched for miles, and he felt a responsibility to all the people in it. I wondered if he ever slept.

In addition to the daily Mass at St. Clare’s, he hosted a weekly national call-in radio program. It was lively and popular and covered social and political issues. Nennenn and Toto listened to it every Saturday on Radio Ginen during the long drive to market. He’d also been busy that summer planning a neighborhood party on the rectory grounds. There would be a band and dancing and hundreds of people. He told me Tiplas Kazo needed things to look forward to that would bring a sense of community, joy, and fun. A group of St. Clare’s teenagers he’d been encouraging, called the “young entrepreneurs,” would kick off a new soda-selling business at the event. In the midst of all of this, he was training a new group of altar girls and a dozen confirmands. He visited the sick and elderly, and said Mass for the Missionaries of Charity nuns at the orphanage. He always found time to greet the neighborhood children and pass out jellybeans.

“See what it takes to make a Haitian child happy, Margaret?” he’d say every time.

On one afternoon, he invited me to go with him to celebrate the first Mass at a new chapel a few miles from St. Clare’s. Overseeing construction projects was another part of his day. I imagined his degree in engineering really came in handy. He’d named the chapel St. Jude. The people it was going to serve lived too far from St. Clare’s to walk to Mass, so building a place for them to worship had been a dream of his for years. Now it was a reality. The first Mass would start in an hour.

When we got to the site of the new chapel, Fr. Gerry jumped out of the jeep, walked down a steep path of rocks, and exclaimed, “Here it is!”

I looked where he pointed, but didn’t see anything but a concrete shell—a floor, one wall, and a ceiling held up by exposed metal poles. The construction site was surrounded by small concrete-block homes. An old faded skirt and blouse were drying on a wood railing just a few feet away.

“Where is it?” I whispered, embarrassed to ask.

“Right here,” he said matter-of-factly as he stepped onto a smooth surface in the midst of piles of concrete blocks and rubble. Stretching his arms over his head, he let out one of his belly laughs and announced, “The St. Jude Chapel is finally here!” Then he spun around in a circle, beaming, and said, “We poured the floor yesterday. It’s dry now.”

As I stood in the middle of the small floor and looked around at the empty space, women in Sunday dresses, hats, and shoes started to arrive, bringing rickety chairs from their homes a few yards away. They lined them up carefully to form pews. A young man set up a card table on the edge of the floor. Then an elderly woman carefully smoothed a pretty white tablecloth over it. Fr. Gerry put on his robe and then reverently placed his Bible and communion cup on the table. A teenager sitting on a cinder block started beating a drum between his legs, signaling the start of the opening hymn.

Fr. Gerry led the Mass with the same love and intensity he always did at St. Clare’s. Whether there were 700 people or a handful, I didn’t see any difference in the way he prayed, preached, or reverently lifted the communion cup. Here we were in his new open-air chapel with no pews, no windows, no doors, only a wooden cross leaning on a pile of rocks.

Nennenn wanted to buy sewing supplies for Manmi Dèt after our weekly stop at the farmers’ market, so we went deeper into the city than usual. I’d been to this part of town once before, when Fr. Gerry and I drove to get paint for Paul.

When we got to the fabric store, I decided to stay in the car and wait while Nennenn and Toto ran in. Just a few seconds passed before a little girl walked up to my window. She held out her hand and touched her belly. Her eyes pleaded with me. I didn’t have any money with me, so I apologized in French, “Je regrette de ne pouvoir vous aider.” She walked away, disappointed. A minute later, another child walked up. This time it was a boy, no more than 6 or 7 years old, with a frayed Chuck E. Cheese T-shirt. As our eyes met and I tried to tell him I didn’t have any money with me, I thought about Bryan’s song, the one I’d heard years ago about the restaurant and the meal and the waiter pulling the shade down. Here was that hungry boy on the other side of my car window. We were only inches from each other and I couldn’t pull the shade down. But I couldn’t help him either. He stuffed his hands in his empty pockets and walked away.

My head pounded, and I started to feel depressed. I’d been protected staying in Manmi Dèt’s neighborhood. Life for the children in Tiplas Kazo was difficult, but they had a strong community, and there was Fr. Gerry, St. Clare’s, and the meals on Sundays. Here, in the heart of the city, it felt raw and overwhelming. So many people struggling to make a living. So many children begging for help.

Nennenn came back with a small bag of supplies, and we continued on our way. I was relieved to be moving again. But just a block or two later, the car stopped. We sat for several minutes and then finally inched forward. As we approached the intersection, I could tell that cars were driving around something. I leaned forward to see what was happening and fell back wishing I’d never looked. A middle-aged man was lying facedown in the middle of the street. Clearly, he was dead.

Maybe he’d collapsed from starvation. Maybe a car had hit him. Maybe he’d been shot. He looked like he had just been walking across the street. Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? No ambulance. No police. Part of me wanted to jump out and run to him, move him to the curb and place a blanket or jacket or something over him. Another part was too scared to do anything. I had been sheltered my whole life. I’d never seen a dead person in the street before. Nennenn placed her hand over mine as we took a left and drove down a side street away from the congestion. I could tell from her reaction that things like this happened every day.

I closed my eyes and slumped down, leaning my head against the backseat.

“Margo, are you okay?” Nennenn asked, smoothing the bangs off my forehead.

“I’m just tired,” I lied. I felt increasingly weak and sick, with the urge to run. A dead man. Dozens of begging children. Thoughts swirled, giving me a pounding headache.

I was a 39-year-old white, middle-class woman who didn’t speak Creole, had never studied Haitian history or politics or global economics or grassroots organizing or fund-raising or anything like that. I didn’t know what I was doing. The problems were too huge. The number of people in need was too large.

My worries spun out of control.

The food program fed a handful of children one meal a week. It was just a drop. A Band-Aid. Plus, there was no guarantee the money was going to keep coming in. Telling a few family members and friends was not enough. What would happen if the money ran out and the food program had to end? I’d be seen as another naïve blan do-gooder who created expectations she couldn’t meet. Who didn’t know what she was doing. A failure. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything to address the reasons they were hungry in the first place, which I knew was the key to change.

My throat was tight. I struggled to hold back tears so Nennenn wouldn’t notice. I hated what I was thinking, but couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t belong here. I should get Luke and leave right now, this afternoon. There’d been a dead man in the street, for God’s sake. And there were probably hundreds of others. It wasn’t safe! There had to be resentment under the surface toward a visiting American. The U.S. government had played a big role throughout history in why the poor are so poor in Haiti. Cité Soleil was packed with misery. It could explode any minute. Another violent coup was always a possibility. My family and friends were right. Luke should be in Little League, not under mosquito netting. He was only 9. I was in way over my head. Fr. Gerry would understand. Manmi Dèt and Nennenn would understand. There was probably a flight to Miami in a few hours. Luke and I could be on it.

When I returned to Manmi Dèt’s house and saw her reassuring smile as she carefully chopped cabbage for the Sunday meal, my fears slowly dissolved. So instead of packing my bags, I picked up a peeler and joined her.

At noon the next day, hundreds of boys and girls gathered at the rectory, waiting patiently in the burning sun for their turn to sit at the table. Nennenn’s creation smelled particularly delicious. The children fidgeted, squealed, and hopped up and down with anticipation of the feast that was coming their way. I leaned against the cement wall in the kitchen and watched Nennenn and her faithful crew of women scoop out generous portions from their huge pots. Gravy overflowed the sides of the plates. Most well-fed Americans wouldn’t be able to finish one of these servings. But I knew that here, even the tiniest child would eat every last drop, like a camel storing away water.

As I looked at all the food and the steady stream of plates being passed down the volunteer line, I remembered a conversation I’d had with Nennenn when I’d visited with Paul.

“Do you ever worry on Sundays that you won’t have enough?” I had asked.

She smiled. “Many times, it’s like Jesus and the bread and the fish. Sometimes when I put the food on the plate, I see the pot never empties. The food … expands.”

“Until the last child is fed?” I’d asked, amazed.

“Yes.”

“Like the loaves and fishes miracle,” I whispered.

She nodded. “Yes, Margo. Giving food is miracle.”

The serving went on until 2:30. Finally, the crowd of children cleared and it appeared that everyone had been fed. The volunteers settled into their meals. Berry Philippe squatted next to me and dived into his stew with a big spoon. He ate quickly at first, but then slowed down, savoring every bite. When he finished, he leaned back against the wall, patted his belly, and smiled.

Suddenly, I heard loud voices outside the kitchen yelling something to the cooks. Nennenn shouted back a response in Creole I didn’t understand. It didn’t sound like an argument, but I knew it was serious.

In a flash, the kitchen was full of people—mostly adults in their 20s and 30s, but there were a few children too. With hands outstretched, they pushed toward the empty pots. Their voices begged for a meal. Nennenn motioned for them to leave. She said there wasn’t any more food. They pressed forward.

My heart beat wildly with panic. I was afraid a fight might break out. Where are you, God? I cried out in my mind. How could we run out of food at this crucial moment? What about the loaves and fishes miracle? It’s happened other Sundays. Why not today? Nennenn and the other servers dug into the bottom of the pots and pans, scraping hard to find something to give the crowd. I watched a woman with sunken cheeks reach out her hand in desperation. Thankfully, Nennenn found a small bit of burned rice and dropped it into her palm. The woman instantly gobbled it up.

A tiny girl in a yellow dress gripped her mother’s hand tightly as she was pulled into the kitchen. Pressed against all the other bodies, she looked at me and smiled. Her eyes were playful. Then she hid her head behind her mother’s leg and popped out the other side. Peekaboo! Peekaboo in the middle of all this chaos? I tried to smile back, but I was too scared to play with her. I stood on tiptoe to see if Nennenn could find anything to give her mother, but every last bit of rice was gone. The little girl’s bright eyes never left mine until she crossed the threshold and disappeared into the dusty street with all the others, empty-handed.

I climbed up the stairs exhausted, crawled under my mosquito netting, and tried to sleep. First the orphans, then the dead man, then we ran out of food. My fears returned, this time with more strength. We couldn’t feed all the children who found their way to the rectory. We’d never be able to feed them all. And with the world the way it is, they will always be hungry. When Luke came to bed, I was glad the electricity was off again so he couldn’t see me crying into my pillow. The distant cries of babies reminded me of the many others who couldn’t sleep either.

In the next few days, I had no energy to practice my Creole, no desire to play with Luke or the neighborhood children, no interest in hanging out with Nennenn or riding around with Fr. Gerry. I pretended to be reading, but my eyes couldn’t focus on the page. Images played over and over in my mind—the dead man, the little girl in the yellow dress, the woman with sunken cheeks eating rice out of her hand. The only thing I felt like doing was walking to Mass with Manmi Dèt. Since we spoke so little of each other’s language, it was easy to be with her. Most of the time, we shared a comfortable silence.

That Wednesday, Mass didn’t start at 4:30. Fr. Gerry was delayed, so Manmi Dèt led the singing while we waited. Instead of following along in the songbook as I usually did, I glanced over my shoulder at Paul’s painting of Jesus, hoping that his image would inspire me. Where was the hope, I wondered. Where was the help? It didn’t seem that anyone heard the Haitian cry of “Osekoooooooooouuuuuuu.” Our little food program had been swallowed up by the need. It was just too small and the problem was too big. The situation was desperate, and, it seemed, getting worse by the day. Staring at the Jesus painting, I asked, Why am I here? and waited for an answer.

I didn’t hear anything except Manmi Dèt’s voice and the pounding of her hand on the top of the pew. I fidgeted in my seat. I felt hot, depressed, and mad at myself for crumpling under pressure. I couldn’t seem to access anything I’d learned from Fr. Gerry’s piti piti wisdom.

The memory of the little girl playing peekaboo and then disappearing out the kitchen door empty-handed wouldn’t leave me. See! I cried out in my mind, I couldn’t feed her. I can’t do it.

You’re here to love.

The thought was just a whisper, but I heard it clearly. I turned around and looked at the painting again.

Fr. Gerry unexpectedly spoke in English. My mind snapped to attention. I hadn’t realized he’d arrived. He was in the middle of his welcome but it wasn’t in Creole. He was talking to me, which he had done in a service on only one other occasion.” …and we thank you, Margaret, for coming to Haiti to be with us. We thank you and all the benefactors in the U.S. who are helping us feed some of Haiti’s hungry children. We are glad you are here with us, in solidarity, Margaret.”

Fr. Gerry was welcoming me so warmly. The women in the pews were smiling and nodding and patting my arm and shoulder. Yes, they were glad I was there—even though I could help with just one meal a week for only a few hundred children, even though there was no guarantee of whether we’d have enough food to feed them all, even though I didn’t know how to address the underlying reasons they were hungry in the first place, even though I was going to leave them in a few weeks and go back to my house and car and full refrigerator and my life that was so packed with comforts and conveniences.

As I sat with Manmi Dèt, listening to her pray and sing, I started to think that maybe I wasn’t an impostor. It wasn’t about quantity or effectiveness or our different lives. It was simpler than that. It was about solidarity. It was about love. On that afternoon, in the front left pew, the words “You’re here to love” became my guide. I promised to myself to remember those words whenever I got swept up in the complexity of numbers and money and expectations and worry. I’d remember Berry Philippe and his smile as he dipped his spoon in his bowl. I knew the value of even one meal.

Manmi Dèt said she wanted me to go to the beach. I love sand and surf—something about large bodies of water makes me feel calm and at peace—but the beach was never a place I expected to visit in Haiti. On a Saturday morning, Magga and Daphné packed a bag lunch and some towels, and we piled into the brown jeep—Dede, Magga, Nancy, Luke, Daphné, and Carla, Manmi Dèt’s niece, who had just arrived from Cleveland for a visit, and me. The beach we were going to was a two-hour drive away.

After four tries, the jeep’s engine turned over and started to chug. I rolled down my window and waved to Manmi Dèt, Nennenn, and Fayla, Manmi Dèt’s sister, who had come with Carla from Ohio. They stayed behind to work on the Sunday meal. Just as we rounded the corner, Fayla waved and called out in English, “Margo, have a good moment.”

“Mèsi, Fayla,” I called back, soaking in her good-bye. I’d never heard that expression before.

Just outside the city, as the sky seemed to expand and the barren mountain range came into full view, we pulled over to buy two stalks of sugarcane from a street merchant. We each broke off a piece and sucked on the sweet cane juice as we bounced down the narrow road. Dede’s speedometer was broken, so I don’t know how fast we were going—probably not more than 15 miles an hour because of all the potholes and rocks. But I didn’t mind the slow drive. It gave me time to take in the countryside.

A toothless man carrying a machete nodded in acknowledgment as we drove by his wooden house. Young girls carrying plastic jugs chatted as they walked alongside the road to gather precious water. Boys played marbles in dusty yards. Occasionally we’d pass a family selling cassavas or mangoes.

The villages we drove through were tiny, only a handful of houses in each, and I wondered where the children went to school and how the families got their cooking oil, rice, beans, clothes, or tools. I imagined they had to go to Port-au-Prince or walk for miles to a larger town. I didn’t see any electrical lines or telephone wires. The level of poverty looked the same as in Port-au-Prince, but there was a wonderful feeling of spaciousness and clean air. Despite the vast deforestation, there were banana and plantain groves, a hint of the tropical paradise Haiti once was. The villages seemed peaceful and I imagined if given the choice, many Port-au-Prince residents would prefer to live in the countryside if they could feed their families and send their children to school.

Every once in a while, we stopped to allow a family of roosters and hens to pass. I saw a few farmers trying to break the hard ground with a spade. I don’t know how they watered their plots of land, but in some places, I saw seedlings breaking through the harsh earth.

After two hours, we arrived at the white sandy beach, and we were the only ones there. It was state-owned and required a small fee, prohibitive to most Haitians. The water was a smattering of turquoise blue and emerald green, clear and warm. Mountains with jagged cliffs surrounded us. The beach reminded me of the Cayman Islands or Mexico— breathtakingly beautiful—except that it was empty.

We swam and splashed and ate watermelon and bread with jam. As I sat on my wooden beach chair and watched Luke and Daphné play in the waves, Fayla’s words, “Have a good moment,” sung in my ears. I asked Carla about the translation, and she said that her mother had translated word for word the Creole expression “Pase yon bon moman,” which was used like our “Have a good day.”

That night the whole family gathered at the house of Manmi Dèt’s daughter Marjorie to talk about the beach. Marjorie lived with her husband and 5-year-old daughter just a few feet through the trees. Without TV, computers, or phones, there always was time to gather and talk. This was a big part of Haitian life and it was precious.

If there are such things as past lives, I must have been a member of the Dépestre family. Being with them was so natural and easy for me. Our trip to the beach in the jeep reminded me of trips my family took in our station wagon, all seven of us piling in, to spend a day out of Chicago.

Feeling tired after all the sun, I was ready to turn in for the night when Marjorie pulled out a boom box, turned on some Haitian music, and started dancing. The music had an infectious Caribbean beat. Nennenn joined in. Then Nérie. Their hips moved in sync with the drums, their movements fluid and graceful, beautiful to watch. They looked so comfortable in their bodies. I sat in awe as they twirled and laughed, their skirts swinging.

“Come on, Margo. You too.” I tried to resist, telling them I didn’t really know how to dance, but they pulled me out of my chair. “It’s easy. Just feel the music and move your hips.”

Easy for them to say. My hips didn’t shake like theirs. They were stiff, almost stuck. The sisters laughed playfully as they watched me try to copy them. “Don’t think, Margo. Just move to the rhythm. Relax. Have fun.”

Don’t think. Have fun. Those are two of the hardest things for me to do. Pase yon bon moman, I reminded myself. Nennenn took my hands and guided my steps. Slowly I started to relax. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the music. Within a few minutes, it was working its magic, as my muscles loosened and thoughts of how silly I looked evaporated. My hips began to sway and my arms flung from side to side. It was great fun. Nennenn clapped with excitement. “You’re getting it, Margo. Good. Good. Just like a Haitian sister.”

We danced in a circle under the stars, sweat dripping down our faces and backs. As we twirled and laughed, my throat started to tighten and my eyes welled up with tears. It was as though emotions trapped in my body were being released. Like the night in Nennenn’s pool, feelings of both joy and grief overwhelmed me. I fought to hold them back, afraid that once they started, they wouldn’t stop. I was so happy, and so sad. Allowing myself to laugh and dance seemed to unlock the full range of feelings that had accumulated since my first trip to Haiti—the tears I couldn’t cry when I first arrived, tears for the butterfly lady and the other women at Son Fils, tears for the babies at the orphanage and Cité Soleil, tears for all the children who are hungry, and the incredible joy of feeling the love from the St. Clare’s community. Emotions of each extreme lived within me and it seemed the more I let go, the more I felt them.

The music ended and we kissed each other good night. As Nennenn kissed my cheek, she whispered in my ear, “Dancing is good for you, Margo.”

It was the last Sunday of my visit. Boys and girls dressed in their best clothes danced and clapped to the beat of an old trumpet as they waited patiently outside the rectory door. The St. Clare’s neighborhood was abuzz with the anticipation of another meal.

I helped unload the jeep, carrying pots and plates into the kitchen. Manmi Dèt and Irène were already positioned, ready to dish up the hot rice and stew. When the door opened, the youngest children ran into the front rooms and slid into position on the benches. Fr. Gerry greeted them in his red-and-white-striped apron. He squeezed into the middle of a packed bench in the main room and began a chant.

“Jezi te di bay timoun yo manje.”

Over and over the children repeated the sentence, playfully pounding their fists on the table. Fr. Gerry laughed and encouraged them to shout out the sentence even louder. Soon everyone in the rectory joined in.

“Jezi te di bay timoun yo manje.”

After the children started eating and the room quieted, I asked Fr. Gerry what they were saying.

“Oh, they love this chant. They’re crying out, ‘Jesus said to feed the children. Jesus said to feed the children.’” He laughed and took a bite of rice and beans. “They deserve to eat, Margaret. Jesus said, ‘I was hungry and you fed me.’ That’s what we’re doing here. We’re feeding the children and God is so happy and so are the children. Look at them!”

The room was packed with kids digging into their food. Hundreds more waited anxiously outside the front door. Overflowing plates streamed down the line of volunteers and up the stairs to the second floor. With the trumpet outside still belting out tunes, it felt like a celebration.

“It’s greater giving than receiving, Margaret, don’t you think?” Fr. Gerry said as he finished his plate. “A person would rather be the giver. But sometimes you’re born in a country where you’re put in a position to receive. Others are born in a country in a better position to give. Both the giver and receiver need each other. The giver can sleep at night because she has the satisfaction that comes with giving. The receiver can sleep at night, too, because his belly is full.”

I thought about all the What If? Foundation donors and what their giving had resulted in. Hundreds of full bellies. But their giving had also created the opportunity for more giving. The faces of the people in the packed kitchen and in the shoulder-to-shoulder chain of plate-passers were lit up with the joy that comes from serving others. We needed each other to give. The donors’ gifts wouldn’t result in full bellies unless the St. Clare’s members also gave their time and love.

Fr. Gerry pointed to the fifty adults waiting in the sun in hopes there would be food left over for them. Some were elderly and frail. Others were young adults. “This community would like to participate in the life of this country and the rest of the world. They want to give. They want to contribute. They would like to have their share in education, their share in infrastructure, their share of work, their share in health care. Many of them think they’ve been forgotten by everyone except by God, who’s sent some messengers-some friends to help them meet their basic needs.” He patted my shoulder and returned to St. Clare’s for a meeting.

When all the children had finished eating, I felt tense, waiting to see if there would be enough food to feed the adults standing in the yard. I was more emotionally prepared for the possibility we’d run out again, reminding myself to focus on love and piti piti. But I didn’t want to see them walk home disappointed. One old man looked as if he would pass out if he didn’t eat soon. I looked at Nennenn sitting in front of a huge pot. She kept reaching in with her spoon and more rice kept coming out. The plates were flowing out of the kitchen. On that day, everybody ate.

As I watched the children and adults file out of the rectory grounds into the dusty street, I tried to capture every detail so I’d remember it when I returned to Berkeley. Gabriel Joseph, a student who lived on the second floor of the rectory, walked out of the kitchen and joined me. He looked up to the sky, put both hands on his belly, and sighed. Gabriel spoke English, so he had been an invaluable translator during the Sunday meals.

“We don’t know how to thank you, Margo, for this food,” he said, looking at me earnestly. “I don’t have anything I can give you. We don’t have anything to give you, we are so poor. But…” He smiled and his eyes sparkled. “We can pray. And we do, every day. We pray for you and for all the people who are giving us this food. Prayer is what we can give you, because we want to give you something back.”

I thought about the gift of prayer flowing out of St. Clare’s to all the donors. They didn’t even know they were receiving it. And I thought about all the other intangible gifts I’d received from my Haitian friends. My heart ached with the thought of leaving them in a few days. The giving and receiving flowed between us continuously. To me, the two felt balanced, one part not more important than the other. We needed each other.

The plane lifted off the runway and, within seconds, Port-au-Prince disappeared under the clouds. Luke’s hand was in mine, as it always was during takeoffs and landings. In ninety minutes we’d be in Miami. Staring out my window, I didn’t see the dark blue sea below, but instead saw the faces of Fr. Gerry, Manmi Dèt, and Nennenn. I didn’t want to say good-bye when I left—it felt so final—so instead I used one of the Creole phrases I’d learned, “Map tounen”— I’ll be back.

I loved the Dépestre family and all the people at St. Clare’s. Spending nearly eight weeks in their community had cemented my connection to them. Knowing I’d be back many more times made my departure easier. I was already thinking about when I might return.

The flight attendant brought us a turkey sandwich, juice, and a cookie, and Luke dived in. He was ready to go home. He missed his friends and was excited about starting third grade. But he loved the Dépestres, too, and said he was happy we spent the summer in Haiti. I knew our time in Port-au-Prince had been one of the most important things I’d done for him.

I didn’t feel like eating. The food placed in front of me only reminded me of the children in Tip las Kazo who could never fly out of Haiti on a plane. I stared at the clouds and prayed I would never forget their hunger, that their daily prayer to St. Jude would always sing in my ears— “Ose-kooooooooouuuuuuu’’—and that, one day, their cry of S.O.S. wouldn’t be needed.

As I looked at the sweets on my tray, I remembered the “powder of love” coconut treat and smiled, picturing Nennenn mixing the ingredients, Nancy patiently spooning the mixture into 500 tiny bags, and Manmi Dèt tying each bag carefully at the top. I thought about the importance of Pase yon bon moman. I’d never felt more grounded or present, thanks to their gentle guidance and example.

I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes, trying to remember more details. I could see Manmi Dèt peeling eggplants, protected from the scorching sun by the awning, and Nancy rubbing lime on each piece of chicken. I saw Nennenn and the careful way she watched over every pot, tasting with a wooden spoon and adding her delicious spices. Then the way Irène balanced overflowing plates of rice and stew and placed them on the kitchen ledge. I would never forget the look of satisfaction and relief on Berry Philippe’s face as he dipped his spoon into his plate of food.

The meal at St. Clare’s had become so much more than I could ever have imagined—from Fr. Gerry’s original vision of feeding the children to a celebration feast every Sunday, fueled by love.

As the plane approached Miami, I braced myself for the shock of reentry into life in the U.S. What would the future hold for the What If? Foundation? I didn’t have a detailed plan. I wasn’t even sure what the next step would be. “Piti piti.” I heard Fr. Gerry’s words in my head. Little by little. One step at a time. Then I had an image of Fr. Gerry at the first Mass at St. Jude’s, standing on the freshly poured cement floor, his white robe blowing in the breeze, his arms outstretched, and a smile on his face. He reminded me I don’t have to have it all figured out. Piti piti na rive.