This is the story of my sweet, incredibly happy coworker.
This is the story of Elizabeth:
I was born in Mexico to parents I never knew. A child with no name. I was left at an orphanage overrun with unwanted children, as is common in my country. As there are too many babies and not enough adults, we kids just kinda took care of each other. A little 5 year old boy named Raymond fell in love with me and with the best abilities that an innocent 5 year old boy can muster, raised me. He wanted me to have a name, so he gave me the most beautiful American name he could think of. The only American name he could think of. He called me Elizabeth. Every night he told me that I was better than this. I was better than Mexico. He told me that in America every Elizabeth is beautiful and lives a beautiful life and someday he would take me there so I could have that.
When he turned 12 years old, and I was now 7, Raymond started getting beaten a lot by the adults. There wasn't much room for older kids there and they wanted him to leave. But he would never leave me. So one night we ran away together! For the next few years we lived on the streets, he worked day and night to send me to school because he told me I would need an education when we go to America. We saved everything we had for that day. Each day he walked me to school and every day he chauffeured me back to our makeshift home. On our walks he would make sure I always walked on the inside, farthest away from the streets. "I can't ever let anything happen to you Lizzy" he would tell me. We would talk about what I had learned that day and each day he would tell me, "Whatever you do Lizzy, make sure you are doing your best. When we get to America we will do whatever we have to do to earn our freedom. Even if we are scrubbing toilets, we will make those toilets shine! Because we will finally be free. We will finally have our dream."
When I was around 16 years old, Raymond started seeing a girl. They had an innocent friendship, completely platonic, but for once he had someone besides me to talk to. What he didn't know, was that her father was a drug Lord, very high up the ranks in the world of crime and malfeasance, and he didn't like Raymond hanging around his daughter.
So one day as Raymond was walking me home from school, a car came barreling up the street, firing gun shots from behind us. Raymond instantly threw me to the ground and flung himself on top of me.
They shot him three times in the back and then drove away.
His last dying words whispered in my ear were, "Go to America my beautiful Lizzy. Find our dream and be happy."
So that's exactly what I did. The streets of Mexico are no place for an innocent young girl to live alone and I knew I didn't have much time. So I gathered up all the money we had saved and I found a group of "Coyotes" who are basically professional border hoppers to take me across. I gave them everything I had and they promised to get me to California safely.
They lied.
One horrible night, somewhere in the middle of the desert, they gang raped me and broke my neck in the process. They left me to die there and I would have if an American Border Patrolman hadn't found me. He took my naked broken body to an American hospital in California where they tried to heal the damage that had been done. It was there that a doctor told me that my body would never again be able to have children. I joke about it now, and tell people that children just don't want ME. But the pain of that revelation still hurts to this day.
Then one night, an angel of a nurse came into my room with clothes and $100 in cash. She told me they were going to send me back to Mexico in the morning and she couldn't let that happen. My angel helped me sneak away into the night, and told me to go to far away from here. The money got me as far as Alabama where I found my first job. I knew that night when my Angel let me go, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing what she did. Saving lives, and rescuing injured souls. I learned English with a southern drawl from a nurse there in Alabama, got my American citizenship, and somehow found my way into Hemodialysis. I have spent the past 20 years of my life serving the dying, and loving the broken. I dedicate every moment of my time on this Earth to my now guardian angel, Raymond. Every time I feel like this job is just too much, or this life isn't everything it should be, I remember that even scrubbing toilets in America is better than living on the streets in Mexico. I also remember that once, in the dead of night, someone gave me a second chance at life. A chance to find my American dream. And I know I can't let her down.
This is the part where she stopped talking and looked over at my sobbing, pathetic figure. I couldn't help it!! The beauty and tragedy in her life's tale was too much! I will never see her again as ordinary. No, not this beautiful human.
Sometimes it feels like humanity has gone insane and evil has won. But I don't see it that way anymore. Because there are angels walking among us disguised as humans. They may not be beautiful to the eye, or glow with an angelic hue. But neither was Jesus.
I hope you all feel uplifted by my beautiful friend, as I was. I hope this story makes you want to go out and be somebody else's angel today. Because as long as we are all trying to take care of others and see them with the pure of love Christ, Good Will Always Prevail :).
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| I have always loved this painting and have it hanging in my baby girl's room. Life is rough, but we are never alone. |
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