Place of Pain

“After great pain, 

a formal feeling 

comes.”

 -Emily Dickinson

At Casita Memorial Park, north of Leon, Ebelina tells her story.

In 1998 she lived in El Porvenir, a village on the side of this volcanic mountain.

Several days of torrential rains had followed Hurricane Mitch. Then on October 30, she heard a loud rumble and ran outside to look for the helicopter.

Instead she saw a roaring wall of mud.

It surged through El Porvenir, burying her waist-deep, crushing three ribs, and breaking her cheekbones.

“That was a hard day,” she says quietly, then chokes up and pauses.

When she speaks again, her eyes are wet. “All around me I heard people crying out.”

For two days she heard adults and infants scream and moan and die. Over and over she calmed a child trapped near her, trying to help conserve his energy and prevent deyhdration.

Rescued by helicopter, Ebelina, a daughter, and a son survived. Her husband, a married son, his wife, and three children did not.

Three surgeries, a month of hospitalization, and relocation to Santa Maria followed.

Ebelina narrates with the impassive dignity of a woman who has weathered great pain.

After her story, we quietly walk the grounds. Beneath us, we learn, are the unrecovered dead.  Each tree we see commemorates a family that is no more.

Coming down the mountain, we ask about her current life in Santa Maria. “I have a garden. I grow vegetables.” she says.

“What vegetables?” we ask.

“Maize  (corn) and papayas.” Yes, in the dry season, she needs to water them. There is a well. Her son and daughter live with her.

As she talks, she smiles. In fact, she glows.

After great pain 

has also flowed 

grace.

-Written Thursday, January 28, while traveling with a team from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. 

-Posted Sunday, January 31, upon return to email access.