I listen to this song, “Friendship with the Poor Makes Us Friends of God … Friendship with the broken, the lonely … with God”. The recent years of my intense mission life in the Dominican Republic have been filled with many projects, interesting activities, achievements and much learning. Today, though, I am remembering a person. A man named Tomás.
He died a few months ago. He was between 60 and 70 years old, not even he knew his exact age. He was single, and life brought him to Sabana Yegua. His siblings and relatives settled in other towns and visited him only occasionally, when their jobs permitted. Tomás was an active member of our parish, attended Sunday Mass and all sorts of meetings. It’s amazing how we “know” people, but unless we have a more personal relationship with them, we don’t connect with their spark, and that is what happened to me with Tomás. He was “one more”, an older man who got along in life in spite of a significant intellectual limitation that didn’t allow him to work.
Our friendship, or at least our mutual affection, began when a tremendous psoriasis presented itself all over his body. He would lift his shirt without any shame, and showed me his torso, as he used to show others, and explained that it caused him much pain, even though he had used many ointments, to no avail. Many people would stare at him and ask him if what he had was contagious. I refused to give him financial aid so that he could go to a supposedly miraculous “curandera”, a traditional healer, who lived in the capital. And so, right there, I took one the challenge to help him in other ways. We found a specialized dermatologist and went together to Santo Domingo to visit him. What a trip! This big, 6 ft. 2-inch man, had to lean on me to go up the escalator of the Subaway, that he had never seen before. We laughed quite a bit!
After a few months, there were no longer any traces of psoriasis, and he would proudly show me that, lifting his shirt, every single time he saw me! But neither Tomás nor I are the main characters in this story. For, who helped him remember to apply his creams in the morning, at noon and at night? Who kept his little home clean? Who did his laundry? The neighbors. Women neighbors, especially. Who fed him and gave him clothing? They, the neighbors.
In recent months, Tomás became sick again. He was diabetic and was also suffering from other infirmities. We had to rush him to the hospital several times, upset and totally “out of it” because of the diabetes. In the end, he died. And, who dignified his corpse by preparing and dressing it? Who swept his house and served refreshments to all who came to mourn him? The neighbors. Who accompanied him to his grave in the cemetery? The neighbors. The brave and kind neighbors always did it, from the time they met him, with a stunning ease and naturality: caring for a neighbor who could not look after himself was simply something normal for them. Maybe they just know, in the depths of their hearts, that, as the song goes, “friendship with the poor makes us friends of God”.
