-----RIP--Mama Alfie

--March 2010--Mama Alfie and Baby Brenda---never looked better!

=========BABY BRENDA +MAMA ALFIE

See :October 2009- "Baby Brenda survives and thrives" http://mariemcgee.blogspot.com/

----------------------------------------------------March 2010


Over the last 6 months, Mama Alfie has gifted me with a (live) chicken, potatoes and most recently fresh from the garden carrots!

-----Last August, a mom of seven brought her youngest baby in to be immunized, while she herself was admitted for treatment of Congestive Heart Failure. I noticed that the 6 week old was malnourished and quickly assessed that the Mom was just too ill to produce the breast milk necessary for her growth. So we tried a method suggested in the World Health Book, of taping an NG tube to the mothers breast and while the baby is sucking, she is both stimulating the mothers milk , as well as receiving formula thru a syringe attached to the NG tube.(see"Baby Brenda Survives and Thrives"Oct 2009) . This ended up being very successful in Brenda's case but Mom needed a surgical procedure to improve her chances of staying alive to raise Brenda and her 6 other children. ------------It took time, numerous consults and some financial manuvering but the procedure was performed, Mom's medications were adjusted and the miracle was evident in both Mom and Baby Brenda.

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------------------------------------------------August 28, 2010

Sadly the news I was given today just broke my heart--Mama Alfie has died!

---I know nothing of the specifics but I can assume her heart condition was the cause and I can assume even more--that once the medication ran out, she didn't receive any more.

---Friends try to tell me that I did all I could for this precious young mother of seven, but all I know is she was alive, receiving medication and doing well when I left in April and now she is dead.

---I wonder who will care for Baby Brenda (age one year now) as well as the other 6 children? I wonder if the hospital ever addressed her case for supplemental health care and medicine, as I requested? I wonder if anyone tried to help her after I left? I wonder if I could have somehow done more to save her life? Maybe if I were still there, maybe if I had written more letters to Administration? Maybe if I had tried harder? I wonder and I pray and I cry and I, again attempt to "live the questions" R.M. Rilke

Mama Alfie: Thank you for coming into my life and teaching me what true generosity looks like (bringing me gifts of potatoes, carrots and a live chicken) to thank me. Thank you for being an example of pure motherhood (getting out of a sick bed to bring your undernourished baby to be immunized). Working the fields daily with Brenda on your back, just to supply food for your family.

Thank you for your gentleness and sweet smile, when you stopped by to visit.

Alfie always had the same dress on (I imagine it was the only one she had), yet it was always clean. I gifted her with a pair of shoes when I left but after trying them on, she took them off to save for sunday church. I never saw her with shoes on her feet, not once.

I am feeling so sad she is gone, so very sad. I envy the angels in heaven to have her presence amongst them but wonder how she can truly be gone, without Baby Brenda on her back. There are some things I will just never understand and this is one of them.

----------------------RIP: Alfie------------------