So much of being a photographer, for me, is in the boundaries between empathy and sympathy. Being intellectually aware of the feelings of others allows me to glance momentarily into their lives— to see as they see. The difficulty in this field is the challenge of not becoming emotionally invested in the subject. When I sympathize with their emotions, which is only human, it becomes impossible to do my work effectively. I start missing opportunities; I get tired; I get sloppy.

Within minutes of entering the hospital where Helping Hands for Honduras’ 6th Pediatric heart Mission was taking place. I was tying on cloth booties, suiting up into a wardrobe of baggy green scrubs and stepping into a minor operating room. It was like being back in junior high — I was self-conscious and uncomfortable. With a big black Canon strung around my neck, I stood like a wallflower: separated and detached from the busy Honduran nurses preparing the room. Normally, I would have had an idea for a shot. But this time was different; there was a little girl lying on the table. Her pink socks stuck out from beneath a sheet that was draped over her body. The anesthesiologist stroked the back of her head a couple of times, softly. “Su nombre es Jesse” one of the nurses mentioned to me, and explained that this was not a heart operation, in fact, but only a catheterization. I didn’t know the difference.

Over the next week Jesse’s health deteriorated. What I could gather from listening to the doctors talk was that she had undergone a surgery the previous summer, and developed an infection, which then became septic; meaning it spread through her entire body. Her parents had waited faithfully in the hallway outside the unit for seven days, and walking past them to the operating room was both inevitable and impossible. Everyone on the team tried so hard to keep their facial muscles flexed into a smile, but for me optimism felt like a lie. Even if I could have spoken their language, I wouldn’t have known what to say. It was just easier to be a coward and look straight ahead when I walked through. On the final day of my trip, Jesse was doing worse than ever. Around 5 PM the team spoke and decided that immediate surgery was necessary for her survival. “It’s risky,” I heard someone say, “but it’s the only shot we have left.”

It seemed like the sun set quickly that night, because the next instant it was dark and quiet in the hospital as the team from the International Children’s Heart Foundation wheeled Jesse down thelong tiled corridor to the operating room, her pink socks sticking out from underneath her blanket.

While so many moments during my week in the hospital affected me profoundly, there is one instance that I treasure above the rest in my memory. After the team had turned the corner and exited from view, I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall, my body heavy with emotion. The dark silence was broken by a gentle song. Jesse’s father cupped his wife’s hand in his own and the two slowly rocked together, back and forth, humming. The quiet melody carried itself to my ears and I began to cry with them. I imagined the sounds sweeping down the hall and past the womanmopping. Taking the corner, they fluttered into the sterile operating room where Jesse slept, and filled the space with beautiful colors. In my mind, her parent’s song ribboned through all the shiny instruments and big machines. It danced around the good doctors in their green clothes and white gloves. The voices funneled towards her little ear canals, into her body, through her veins and finally rested in her weak heart moments before it was opened and exposed to the light.

The world is not fair, and that may be due to many factors. It isn’t fair that some people have a lot while others don’t have enough. It isn’t fair that one out of a hundred kids is born with a congenital heart defect. We all have problems, but few of our flaws could actually end our lives. I got to Honduras on the 27th of December with the intention of photographing another world. I wouldn’t have guessed that my hard shell of professional composure could be shattered by the tiny pink socks of a sick little girl. I did not realize the kind of impact Helping Hands for Honduras has on the lives of so many children, children who can live and breathe and smile now, because of this organization and the continual helping hands of its kind benefactors.

(click here to download a PDF version of our April 2010 newsletter)

Please send donations to:

Helping Hands for Honduras, Inc.
3700 Big Ben Road
Virginia Beach, VA 23452

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