Shaking Tuberculosis.

I am driving to the fruit stand. I have a few errands to run. First I get my blood drawn (pregnancy routine), and soon after pulling away from the hospital I am shifting the dust around with my car veering onto the road side where my road-side fruit stand sits. I am here for the usual: apples, oranges, pomegranates, bananas and sometimes kiwi. This family-owned establishment has become our family-favorite. The two brothers know us well and we'd like to think we know them a bit as well. I am buying fruit and carrying on our normal exchange of polite conversation. All the fruit I want is in stock which means I am going home with bags and bags of goodies as I prepare another round of homemade applesauce. My wallet is open. I am asking if he has any change for the bill I am giving him. Casually almost absentmindedly I ask a normal question. "So where is your little helper today?" I call him Chotu. It's a term of endearment for someone younger than you. The guy isn't really "little" but he is 17 years old that makes him younger than I am. I appreciate his honest, hard work. As we encounter the same people week after week, part of building that relationship is asking about their lives. So Chotu isn't here today and I wonder out loud where he could be on his day off.

The owner of the fruit stand is counting out my change. In answer to my question he says, "He expired." I barely notice. The word doesn't register. Expire. Time out, no longer available, not here, it's over.

I draw in my breath. "Expire?" I get it now. "Expire?" He sees that I understand and I clutch my hand to my chest. "How. What happened?" He snaps his fingers and rubs his head looking for the right word in English. He mumbles and the word comes to him. "Fever. yes fever."

Then he clarifies one more time. TB.

Someone takes my heart and shakes it. Someone pounds my head and rattles it. Someone salts my eyes and they glisten. I repeat back. "Tuberculosis?" Yes. Fever. Fever in the brain. Emergency. Tuberculosis.

I am shutting my car door and pulling away. I pull down my over-sized sunglasses. My car is kicking up dust again and as I drive away I am weeping.

I knew, upon returning to India that I would befriend other carriers of tuberculosis. I knew the time would come for here in India TB is almost as common as the common cold. But I didn't know that THAT day would be today. Of all the things in the world, this boy dies of TB. Three months ago, while I am healing on medication that could literally save the world of TB, he is dying. And I couldn't be more shaken. One sign of the beginnings of TB is a fever that won't go away. For this boy, it wasn't caught and the killer infection went to his brain.

You know what I want to do? I want to shake the TB out of my leg. Literally I want to just shake it out. I don't want to be associated with it. I don't want to be associated with all it represents. As I drive home and the tears stream down my face, all I can say is "I don't understand, Lord. I don't understand."

I don't understand why you protected me. I don't understand why he died of a disease I carry. I don't understand why he didn't get medical help or ask more questions. I don't understand how an ugly disease can have the guts to kill kids, kids who have nothing in the first place. I don't understand your love. Your love for me isn't fair. I want your grace and mercy to be heavy upon others too; let me pass it on to others. I don't understand Lord. I don't understand.

I've been wondering how exactly to close the door of TB and leave its face behind. It's important to move forward. And we are making steps to do that. But today represents history that changes us forever. Forever.