She was living in rental accommodation, alone in a room. When they had time, her sisters sometimes went to see her. It should be noted too that, in addition to living with intellectual disabilities, she was confined to a wheelchair. There was no provision made for her to get outside into the air. During the earthquake, the other residents had time to escape. They raced from their respective rooms, taking to their heels and running for their lives. She is the only person who died. Without doing it intentionally, people pushed her toward death, because when we are forced into oblivion, we are pushed toward death.

No one wanted her to die, but through the years no one had rescued her. What really frightens me about all of this is the collective forgetfulness. It is so easy to forget the most vulnerable among us, and it’s a thousand times easier in the middle of an emergency situation in which we ourselves are victims.

Haiti’s history is filled with rejection: Whites and slaves, mulattoes and blacks, rich blacks and the poor, men and women, adults and children. Where the dominant live better lives than the dominated, one quickly learns that, in order to flourish, to be raised to the rank of the “heard,” this subtle domination of others is necessary. The others, and that really means all the others, are voiceless. And as the social system doesn’t change, whether among the rich or among the poor - well then, one rejects the other, depending on their mood. At the very bottom of this extended hierarchy are those who cannot defend themselves. Those whom life required to be strong in their weakness.

The person who is intellectually “deficient” does not have the same tools to function in our society as does a so-called “normal” person (and it is often the case that the normal one are “deficient” of heart). The person with an intellectual disability will never fight against the forgetting, against this rejection of their very selves. The person who is “deficient” in intelligence forgives even before we have done them harm, and therefore does not have the intellectual will to seek recognition of his or her rights. And such a desire is in any case quickly superseded by the affective will, which seeks recognition of his or her value.

It is up to us, as human beings above all else, to give these people the place they deserve. Not a ghetto – separate and isolated - but a place well and truly anchored in our societies. This forgetting of people affected by an intellectual disability is not the only problem Haitians face. I have had the enormous privilege, through my years at L’Arche, of learning that the strength of one person, more often than not, becomes the strength of another. All it takes is that we let ourselves be touched by that other.

Here in this hot country, we have not yet started to rebuild. Every day is an emergency for those who live in Port-au-Prince. All this urgency, the demands of daily life that are so ridiculously distressing for hundreds of thousands of people, doesn’t offer much hope for our cause. They are here, somewhere, the thousands of people affected by intellectual disabilities. Still hidden, still devastated, still forgotten. But in an emergency, we think of ourselves before we think of the other.