Windows to your soul

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. It's so true. Most of the time a person doesn't have to say anything, but their eyes speak volumes. Or often someone talks and talks and talks but their eyes are empty. Their eyes are dying.

I saw an HIV positive patient the other day. She is a one year old girl whose mother died and no one else wants her so she is staying at the hospital permanently. She doesn't have anyone to love or care for her. I was working with her and talking to her and holding her. She doesn't talk. She doesn't seem to communicate at all. Her eyes have died. It's like the eyes of a 75 year old man on his death bed. She doesn't want to try anymore. It seems that in her short time on earth she has learned that people always leave. Systems fail. Life means nothing. Trying is useless. She just simply sits passively. She doesn't seem to want or expect anything. She's not like other children. She's given up.

I've seen patients die, patients who burned their entire faces, patients whose legs are thinner than my wrist and an entire array of horrible things in this hospital. But this is the only patients whose made me cry so far. Children shouldn't be rendered hopeless. Children should dream and play and hope as if anything is possible. Children shouldn't be alone. Something in our society has failed if we cannot even take care of our children.