By Sr. Teresita Perez, mm

A years back, while I was missioned in Peru, our doorbell rang at around 9 pm. When I opened the door, there was Cristina, a junior student in high school, looking very distraught and panting. “Sister,” she said, “I want to talk to you.” I invited her in to sit down and without much ado she said in Spanish: “I want to kill myself.”

“Bueno” I replied. "How do you plan to do it?” she did not quite expect my question, but she answered it without batting an eyelid. “I’m going to throw myself onto the train tracks and let passing train run over me!”

“And did you think about the engineer and his family after the train runs you over?” “No,” she said, without any expression, her eyes burrowing into mine. “You’d better thinks of that man because while you accomplish your goals others will suffer: the engineer will be thrown in jails and his family will starve to death.”

“Well, I think I’ll throw myself into the street and any vehicle can run over me.” "It’s the same story, Cristina. The driver in prison and his family starving and abandoned. Tell me what  really is the problem?”

She began to cry and sobbed inconsolably. I hugged her and let her cry her heart out. When she stopped crying she told me she had just found out that day that she came into world through a casual encounter between her father and her mother, each of whom had a spouse. She never knew anything about it because she was raised by her grandmother in the farm.

“Aren’t you lucky that you are alive?” I asked her. “Here you are, strong, healthy, a varsity basketball player and studying in good school.We can’t choose the people who give us life, but we do have a choice of what kind of life we’d like to have. You have a mission in this world,, Cristina. One that nobody can do for you. And only you can find what it is. You’re already in your third year in high school. You’re on the road to discovering your mission. Your life is in your hands and you can make it as good as you want. Put your hand in God’s and you can be sure that together you will find it. What do you want to be in the future?”

"A social worker,” she said, without hesitation.

“Then a social worker you shall be. You will be able to help so many others through their difficulties, because you’ve been there.” She had now calmed down entirely and I asked if she wanted me to pray over her. She nodded. I stood up and put  my hand on her head and prayed over her. Before she left we talked about forgiveness, especially of forgiveness for her father and mother. The next day she came to the  door with a huge wicker basket filled with newly harvested vegetables from her grandmother’s farm – cabbage, cucumbers, squash, onions, carrots, lettuce, beets: a two-week supply!

Ten years later I met Cristina accidentally on the street. Our eyes locked. I said softly, “Cristina?” her eyes smiled at me and she said, “Yes Sister. You remember me? I’m now a social worker.”

Salamat sa Revista Maryknoll