A Disappointment and a Renewal of Hope

Yesterday was defined by another disappointing trip to the ENT doc. This only a few weeks after we became wildly excited that the doc had managed to dilate Brave Baby's airway to "almost normal". She told me that the fact that we haven't heard any voice from Brave Baby since the dilation means the airway is probably scarred over again. If so, there's no point in continuing to dilate because the gains will be lost too quickly. All my hopes dashed. I'd been hoping Brave Baby would start being able to breathe through her nose a bit, to smell, to taste more. Thought she might start to eat better if she could taste better. I thought my hopes were modest, to be honest. I thought we were finally on the upswing.

When I got home from that appointment, I didn't have the energy for much more than cleaning out my inbox. Coincidentally, I decided to take a look at this link my cousin sent me quite some time ago to the Lawson State Community College's black history links. Quite frankly, I have never heard of Lawson State Community College. I don't even know what state it's in. But I like this catalog. It's surprisingly current. It's already been updated with an entry on the Haiti earthquake of 2010. Oh, and wow(!), I just realized that my dad's on there too. Supercool! I'll have to come back to that one. Anyway, as I was perusing, I came across the story of Joseph Laroche and his family. Laroche was the only black person-a Haitian, incidentally-to perish on the Titanic. One of his last acts was to put his French wife, who was pregnant at the time, and their two young daughters on a lifeboat.

There's a lot that's interesting about this story from a historical perspective but, particularly given the state of mind I was in yesterday, I zoned in on one particular fact. The Laroches' second daughter, Louise, was born prematurely. I don't know how prematurely. During that time, what would have been considered dangerously premature would surely have been far less premature than Brave Baby was. But, for her time, Louise's prematurity, however premature she was, left her with serious medical complications. The family was on the Titanic returning to Haiti because there were no opportunities for high-paying engineering jobs for a black man in France and Louise's medical bills were high. Joseph's mother had originally bought them tickets on another ship but, due to the restrictions on children on the first ship, the family switched their reservation to second class on the Titanic.

Louise survived the Titanic, along with her mother Juliette and her sister Simone. They returned to France, where the last child of Joseph and Juliette was born. And here's a picture of Louise in 1997. She lived to be 87 years old! This was heartening. I am often reminding myself that I have to take the long view, that Brave Baby's rough start will one day be only a story we tell. But, in the midst of it, it feels never-ending. It feels like my life will be and has always been this. I imagine that Joseph and Juliette must have felt the same things that my husband and I feel now: the pain of watching their child suffer, the fear of losing her, the isolation of having no one else who really understands what it's like to go through this. Juliette was willing to give up all that she knew and go with her husband to Haiti in order to amass the money needed to save their daughter. And, in the end, it seems, Louise's life progressed like any other. Well, beyon the fact that she almost perished with the Titanic. Toward the end of it, she was still able to smile. I hope Brave Baby will be smiling 87 years from now, and will live even longer than that.