Saturday 17 April 2010

Dead man walking

At 3.30 last night a man walked.

Normal stuff (though the hour is one when most people sleep).

Except that the man in question was in a semi coma for a number of days.

His wife had fallen asleep and woke up with a start.

The hospital bed where her husband should have been was empty.

Did he fall down?

She looked and did not see him.

Then she and the nurse on duty (roused too from a small slumber) went to see.

They found him trying to get a drink from a water filter.

He had taken off his catheder, picked up the bottle of saline solution that he had been hooked up to, gotten out of bed and had gone to the toilet.

Amazing stuff from a man so close to death - where the death mask had seemed to be slipping over his face in the past few days.

Nirmal is still far from healthy. But what a miracle to see him take these unexpected steps in the middle of the night.

Will he pull through? We hope so - at least for him to get better enough to go to his home village in the South.

In the meantime Cheli, the amazing wife of his - with all her tenderness and love for him - has found that she too has HIV.

Will Nirmal and Cheli ever be 'normal' again? Hard to tell. But we do know that on this day - at this hour the love and care they are receiving - and the prayers - are making slow but real progress in their life together.

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