Norberto

I seem to go through spurts of blogging; sometimes I post nearly daily and at other times I will go weeks without thinking of my blog. I do like to try to keep it up though... having Blogs for a Cause (a business designing blogs) motivates me to keep blogging to stay in touch with my customers, and attract new ones. However, these past few weeks have clearly been a time of not so much blogging! I haven't had much to write, but heard sad news yesterday that I want to take the time to post about. Having a blog is therapeutic for me; I share my thoughts and writing it down always makes me feel better. Lately, with the deaths of Jaron, Shalene, and then Jamie in the orphanage I worked in in India, I know the mood has been a little low. Unfortunately, I was given more sad news to add to that.

A few nights ago Norberto passed away in his sleep. I met Norberto three years ago on my first humanitarian trip, with Hero Holiday to the Dominican Republic. We were building a school in his village, Arroyo Seco, and I fell in love with him, his village, and everyone in it. To this day, it is my favourite place on earth. Norberto was in a motoconcho accident when he was young and put in a wheelchair. He was finally able to attend school when Hero Holiday finished the building, and filled it up with supplies. Every work day I would sit next to him and we would spend time together. He called me Mickey Mouse (because Nikki rhymes with Mickey, i guess) although with his Dominican accent it sounded more like Mickey Moooow.

The following summer I returned to the DR to do more work on the school. Within a few minutes of arriving, I heard a familiar voice, "Mickey Mow!" I looked up and there was Norberto, smiling at me with that special smile of his. Of course, I remembered him and had thought a lot about him that year since I had seen him last, but I was so surprised and touched that he remembered me. The summer after I returned in May, and school was still in session. I stood in the playground of the school, on my first day back, and Norberto waved down at me through the open window on the second floor. I was so happy to see him in a classroom, learning. I had made a photo album for him with photos I had taken of him over the past years, and I threw it up to the second floor. His friends caught it for him, and they all crowded around Norberto to look at the photos. He was so proud to see photos of him with all his Canadian Hero Holiday friends; so many people who knew what a special kid he was.

Last year Norberto began getting sick, and sicker. Just recently he was diagnosed with leukemia, and he passed away quickly and peacefully. When I heard the news that he was sick, I was worried, but never thought he would die. It is Norberto! He had become such a fixture in my Dominican life that it is hard to imagine Arroyo Seco without him. When I heard the news, my heart sunk. Just like Jaron, Shalene, and Jamie, it doesn't seem quite real. I still almost expect to go back to Arroyo and hear a little voice calling, "Mickey Mow!" He touched so many lives with something very simple; his smile. Through everything he endured, he pushed through it with a happiness that many of us, who have much more, do not know. He makes me strive to be a better person; to enjoy life's simple pleasures... and to smile.