Tout un chacun

Chacun ses pieds
Dans ses pas

Chacun ses larmes
Au large des yeux

Chacun sa main
Dans l’aumône

Dans le trois-mâts
Chacun ses rêves

Son mal de poudrerie
Dans ses désirs

Son mal de nébuleuse
Dans ses pensées

Au repas
Chacun sa dent

Chacun son cou
Dans l’amour

Chacun, chacun

Chacun ses os
Au cimetière

Gaston Miron, L’homme rapaillé,

You know what – it’s easy to be brave. Just remain yourself in the face of adversity. I love simple people. The ones who don’t change at every detour on the road of life. The ones who dance in the midst of a meteor shower, jumping in puddles of water. Those who survive an earthquake, and still talk about how good spaghetti tastes ...

Maybe this is exactly what binds me to these people who are affected by an intellectual disability. Their simplicity—it’s not something transitory; it is innate and natural. Their courage is not overinflated; rather, it is silent—and it falters. Because courage also sometimes means knowing how to be afraid. This past weekend, Gustave, my taxi driver in Port-au-Prince, told me that the strongest people are those who know how to be weak. Surely, a 43-year-old man who survived the catastrophe only to have to dig through the rubble to find his three lost children, surely he would not tell me a lie. Wisdom, I say to myself as we zigzag through streets even narrower than ever – wisdom comes from everywhere; from all these people who are picking themselves up off the ground, not just surviving, but resuming daily life in the aftermath.

I received a message—no: I have actually received dozens of messages, from friends, family, acquaintances, strangers—all saying that they feel useless so far away from here, in their comfortable homes. I’m writing this blog entry today for them. My voice is very feeble in the face of our capacity for self-flagellation, but I beg you—guilt never changed the world. A catastrophe, however natural, is not pretty. And yet it is at such a time as this that we come to understand that everyone has a place. Because Moïse needs as much care as he did before to help him eat, change, wash, to ensure that he sleeps comfortably, does that mean he is useless because he can’t do anything concrete to help during the country’s crisis? Or Jolibois, so handsome with his intense and serious gaze—is he useless because he can’t help bring out abandoned bodies from the ruins in the neighbourhood?

At L’Arche, we struggle daily to promote the unique, but essential, place of people who have intellectual disabilities. In an inclusive society, where everyone had a voice, society would recognize the magic, but silent, contribution of people like Jolibois, like Moïse, who are people of the heart rather than people of the head. At L’Arche, we believe that humanity urgently needs to recognize the gifts of the most forgotten, even if, to our societies based on productivity and profit, they offer nothing tangible.

I got a little lost in my account here—sorry. You who are praying, giving, crying, supporting; you who have been thinking of us daily over these past weeks; you are our silent weapon, our reason for staying the course, our source of survival (money, my friends, money doesn’t change the world, except ...). You have a part to play in the story of humanity unfolding before our incredulous eyes. Friends—friends of L’Arche or friends who are L’Arche—more precious than sunscreen on the beach, you give us the strength that would fail us on these gray mornings. It is feeling supported and loved by so many people that makes us smile during prayer. This is not trivial, only to be our moral support from one day to the next.

I say it over and over again – the friends are not useless, even if their need for attention and accompaniment is as great as ever. They are useful, in their own unique roles, and you too, at a distance, also have yours to play. If you really think about it hard, without the friends, without these beings who are so strong and so fragile, fewer of us would be experiencing the catastrophe so personally. The friends bring us together and make us more human. In this lies their greatest power.
…………………………………………………..

The community of Chantal is in mourning. Jonas, pillar of the community, always smiling and with an endearing appetite for life, is no more. At least, he is no longer here in body. He will remain forever in our recollections and our collective memory.