Happy Valentine's Day: From Vasco's Heart to Yours

Can you believe how big he is?
How grown-up he looks?

I'm humming that song from "Fiddler on the Roof" ... where is that little boy I carried?

Vasco continues to flourish here in Laguna. He is excelling at school, in the arts and sports. He also really loves Jesus, which makes us more happy than we can say. That part seemed to come innately to this spiritually wise child. And our church is doing a great job (maybe us, too) of teaching him about how much God loves him and all of us.

He brought me a dozen pink roses today and a card that he signed, "Mom, I love you." My heart. Oh, my heart.

Happy Valentine's Day to all. 

GODSTUFF: How Harrison Ford helped me explain Hanukkah to my 10 year old

Last week, the postal carrier dropped off two boxes from Amazon.com filled with DVDs of Christmas movies. Among them were “Polar Express,” “The Nativity Story,” and two boxed sets of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animation TV specials I grew up with in the 1970s.

The new DVDs added to our already enormous Christmas movie collection. It’s our 10-year-old son’s first American Christmas and when it comes to that holiday and all of its stories, secular and sacred, we’ve got the bases covered.

But some of our closest family friends are Jewish and we’re want Vasco to know about Hanukkah, too. Unfortunately, when it comes to Hanukkah movies, the pickings are maddeningly slim.

We’ll probably show him Adam Sandler’s goofy animated flick, “Eight Crazy Nights” and, in a few years, maybe we’ll let him watch the racier “The Hebrew Hammer.”
There are a few child-oriented Hanukkah films out there but our son is used to the production quality of “Finding Nemo” and the Harry Potter epics, so hand puppets and low-budget animation just won’t fly.

The folks at the Sesame Street Workshop’s “Shalom Sesame” series, which explores Jewish and Israeli culture and history, have a Hanukkah special, which I’ve ordered, but that skews a bit young for a fourth grader.

Vasco already knows what a menorah is and is fascinated by the enormous dreidel erected at a public park nearby, but it has been a challenge explaining what Hanukkah is all about without the help of his favorite medium: movies.

We want him to know that Hanukkah, like Christmas, is not just about getting gifts and lighting lights. There is a powerful spiritual story behind the superficial cultural retellings the winter holidays receive.

For those of you who could use a little help, here is a short version of the Hanukkah story:

About 2,200 years ago, the Jewish people were living in Israel under the rule of Greco- Syrian kings. One of those kings, Antiochus Epiphanes, a particularly nasty fellow, forbade the Jews to practice their religion and tried to force them to worship Greek gods. When they refused because it was idolatry and forbidden by God, he killed them.

The nasty king even installed a statue of the Greek god Zeus in the Jew's Holy Temple in Jerusalem and, as was the custom in Greek worship, sacrificed a pig on its altar. Having had enough of the terror, Judah Maccabee, the son of a Jewish priest, and his four brothers led a revolt against their oppressors and, after three years and against all odds, they managed to drive the Greco-Syrians out of Judea. It was their faith and obedience to God, the story goes, that led them to victory.

The Jews set about cleaning and recon-secrating their holy temple and needed to keep an oil lamp lit day and night as part of the ritual. But they only had enough oil for one day, and it would take another week to press olives for more. Miraculously, the lamp in the temple with barely enough oil for one day stayed lit for eight.

On Hanukkah, which comes from the Hebrew word that means "dedicated," Jews around the world light a menorah for eight nights to remember that miracle and the victory of the Maccabees over their oppressors.

That's a little difficult to explain to a 10-year-old who's still learning English.

But there's something essential in there that he can grasp. Hanukkah is about having the courage and the faith to live and be who you are supposed to be amidst a culture that says you shouldn't or can't.

Oppression is something that he can understand. Each of us has experienced the heavy mantle of oppression whether in huge, systematic ways or small, personal dramas.

Having the faith and the chutzpah to be who God made you to be when you're being pressured to do otherwise or are living among people who don't understand you or put you down because you're not the same as them is a universal experience.

When that Hanukkah story became clear to me, I realized we already owned the perfect movie and had recently watched it.



It's not new, high-tech or edgy. Pixar isn't involved, and there is no accompanying line of children's tchotchkes that Vasco wanted to run out to Target to buy.

The best film I can recommend to parents and children this Hanukkah is the 1979 flick "The Frisco Kid," starring Gene Wilder and and a very young Harrison Ford.

Set around the turn of the 20th century, Wilder plays Avram, a Jewish rabbi from Poland who is dispatched to the United States to serve a new synagogue in San Francisco.

Avram is a righteous, if terribly naive, man, and his cross-country journey is jeopardized by three con men who beat him, steal all his money and toss his Torah scroll from a covered wagon after pocketing the silver tass, or breastplate, that decorated the front of its velvet cover.

Ford's character Tommy, a bank robber with a decent heart, befriends Avram and accompanies him to San Francisco, fending off all manner of obstacles and enemies. Throughout the sometimes life-threatening journey, Avram consistently makes difficult decisions to do the right thing, according to his faith, and not the easier thing.

The rabbi refuses to ride his horse on the Sabbath until the sun sets, even though he and Tommy are being pursued by a lynch mob. God seemingly rewards his faithfulness and they get away.

Along the way the rabbi and the robber become friends, and we learn a lot about Judaism, ethics and the faith that it takes to do what you're supposed to do just because it's right. "Come here chicken, I'm not gonna hurt you, I just want to eat you," a near-starving Avram says in one scene, chasing his would-be dinner. "I don't wanna hurt you, I just want to make you kosher."

Trust me on this one. Try "The Frisco Kid."

You might learn a little something — about Judaism or perhaps about being your highest and best self in the midst of turmoil.

Surely you'll have a few laughs and that will make for a very Happy Hanukkah.

GODSTUFF: Our first Thanksgiving through a child's eyes

Vasco called it “Thanks-for-giving.”

There is no Thankgiving holiday in Malawi, where my son is from. So yesterday (THURS) was his first. And it was my best.

Seeing the holiday through a child’s eyes for the first time makes it all so very clear.

It’s not about the food, or the Macy’s parade, or even the pilgrims and the original Americans.

Thanksgiving is just that — a time to be thankful for all that we have.

Last week in school, Vasco made a list of all the things he was thankful for. He’s 10 so we expected that he’d tick off all of his toys and his soccer team winning the championship and the gifts that he got for his birthday and being able to ride a bike without the help of training wheels.

But this child is special. He’s wise beyond his years. What Vasco said was:
“I am thankful for my mom and dad. I am thankful that I can hear people laughing. I am thankful for friends. I feel thankful for love.”

Vasco was an orphan when we met him in Malawi two years ago. His parents and grandparents had died before he had reached the age of five. He lived alone on the streets for a number of years. And he was sick — born with a hole in his heart that left him struggling to breathe and just survive.

Last spring, with the help of many generous readers and wonderful doctors at Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Vasco’s heart was repaired. He’s perfectly healthy now, growing fast and gaining strength every day.

We are now in the process of adopting him. Vasco is my only child.

Our son is the greatest blessing I’ve ever been given, the most precious gift I’ve ever been entrusted with. It is an immense privilege to be his parent. My own heart has grown in ways I never knew it could.

Every time I look at him, healthy and happy, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

This Thanksgiving, I am the most thankful for him. For family. For friends who have walked us into parenthood and surrounded our child with chosen aunts and uncles and cousins.

I am thankful for the journey that brought us into each other’s lives.

I am thankful for the kindness of strangers who continue to bless us with their generosity, for a community that welcomed him with open arms and delights in his life.

I am immensely thankful for the chance to see the world with new eyes, to experience the magic of holidays, the wonder of nature, the pure delight of play and discovering new things.

On Thursday morning, while cinnamon buns were baking in the oven, Vasco snuggled up next to his dad on the sofa and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

When I was a child growing up in Connecticut, my father used to take my brother and me into the city to watch the parade in person. The huge balloons trundling through midtown Manhattan, the marching bands, the gleeful anticipation of Santa’s arrival at the end of the parade. It was pure delight.

In recent years, the wonder of the parade was replaced with disdain for its crass commercialism. But seeing it from Vasco’s vantage point replaced my adult cynicism with that joy I had as a child.

I am thankful for that, too.

For second chances. For fresh eyes. For the reclaiming of the goodness in things that had grown a bit sour with life’s experiences.

The 13th century German theologian Meister Eckhart once said that if the only prayer we said in our lifetime was “Thank you,” that would be enough.

It’s so simple and yet so powerful.

The night before Thanksgiving, Vasco was on the phone with his grandparents in Connecticut. We asked him to tell them what he was thankful for.

“God,” he said.

We’ve not had to tell him that all we have, all the many blessings we’ve been given, are all from the Creator. That’s just something Vasco knows.

Thankfulness is his natural response to everything he encounters. Not just the material possessions, but the people in his life.

It’s a lesson he’s taught me anew.

Vasco said the grace at our Thanksgiving dinner. As is his custom, he listed all the people he cares about and ticked off the events of the previous day. Seeing the parade. Cooking with mom. Riding his bike. Watching movies together. Going to the beach before we ate turkey. Playing with the cats. Talking to neighbors. Being a family.

One of the songs in the Thanksgiving mix that played while we ate dinner was the World Party song, “Thank You World.”
It says, in part:

Colors scents and symphonies
Fall on me like tears
And time around me stretches back
And forth across the years
Was I sent to see your beauty
Just to please my aching heart
Well I want to say good morning
But I don't know where to start
Thank you world.

Thank you world. Thank you God.
That was our prayer yesterday.
That is my prayer today.
That will be my prayer tomorrow.
Thank you.
It’s enough.

Vasco's next chapter: God makes a family

The Wee Man isn't so wee any more.

Vasco Sylvester, the 10-year-old boy from Malawi who Sun-Times readers helped bring to Chicago for lifesaving heart surgery this spring has grown three inches -- and three shoe sizes -- since he left Hope Children's Hospital in June.

His heart is working perfectly. His strength, vocabulary, confidence and muscles grow every day. He can run and jump and swim and play soccer (he's a striker) for the first time in his young life.

Many of you have written to me over the last three months asking about Vasco -- how he is and where he is.

My family has some happy news we want to share with you.

With the cooperation of the Malawian and U.S. governments, we are in the process of adopting Vasco.

He lives with us in California, started fourth grade last month at the local grammar school, and his soccer team, the Fat Pandas, are 2-1.

Vasco is happy, healthy, flourishing and has a family who will love and care for him for the rest of his life. Looking at him slide-tackle a player twice his size or belly-ride a big wave on his surfboard, it's hard to believe this is the same sick little boy, who lived on the streets alone after his parents died of AIDS, whom we met on the side of the road in Malawi two years ago next week.




The joy and blessing this child is in my life and the life of my family and extended circle of friends is something I don't think I could ever adequately articulate.

Your contributions helped clothe and feed him in Malawi, and since his arrival here, have helped with doctor bills and to pay for the expensive heart medication he needs to take daily for at least another few months.

If Vasco could thank you all personally, he would. So I'll do it for him.

My thanks to you, dear readers, in helping give Vasco -- and his mom -- a new life, is as deep as my heart is capable of feeling.



This mitzvah was the work of many, many hands.

And it started with a raffle ticket.

On April 29, 2006, I got a call from Tom Derdak, the director of Chicago's Global Alliance for Africa, telling me that I'd won a two-week all-expenses-paid trip for two to East Africa. A month earlier, I had bought a handful of tickets from my former colleague Debra Pickett and forgotten about them. I'd never won anything. Not even a door prize.

So the news about the trip to Africa was a thunderbolt of good luck. Eighteen months later, while I was working on a book about the subject of grace, my husband and I decided to take that trip and added on another two weeks to see more of the African continent.

We decided to travel to Malawi to visit a charity that worked with street kids which we had been supporting for a few years. We were in Blantyre, Malawi, for less than 72 hours and met dozens of street children. The last one we met, after a long day of visiting with kids at a drop-in center, was Vasco.

I can still hear his squeaky little voice yell, "I'm coming," in Chichewa, his native language, when we walked into the dirt compound where he lived with some extended family. I can still feel the violent pounding of his heart shaking his fragile little body -- and mine -- as he sat on my lap.

Before anyone told us what was wrong with him, my husband and I knew that he was gravely ill. He had a hole in his heart. He was dying.



When I wrote about him for the first time in the Sun-Times almost two years ago, three hospitals in Chicago came forward and offered to treat him pro bono if we could just get him to the States.

It took 18 months to get him here, but on April 29, 2009, Vasco arrived at O'Hare -- less than 4 feet tall and 42 pounds. He had malaria, was carrying tuberculosis (though, thankfully, he is not infected himself), and had three parasites. After his doctors at Hope got rid of all his extra "baggage," he underwent successful open-heart surgery to repair the large ventricular septal defect in his little lion's heart on June 10.

It was the night of the surgery, while Vasco was still unconscious and on a ventilator, that my husband and I looked across his frail body and just knew.

This boy was our son.

At that moment, we decided we'd do whatever we needed to do to make sure he would always be taken care of, always have a family, always have a home and the chance to become everything that he can be.

But the choice was Vasco's. With the help of our Malawian friend and native Chichewa speaker in Oak Park, Dr. Kamana Mbekeani, we asked him if we could have the honor of being his parents.

He said yes.



We weren't sure if it would even be possible to adopt from Malawi. Anyone familiar with Madonna's story of getting her son, David, and daughter, Mercy, out of Malawi knows a bit about how difficult it can be.

But doors opened. Bridges appeared. Angels came to guide us on both sides of the Atlantic.

Vasco's surviving aunt and uncle gave their blessings for Vasco to join our family, and, as is the custom, so did the headman of his ancestral village. The U.S. government extended his visa until next August. We're in the process of scheduling a home visit by a U.S. welfare agency, and then the three of us will travel back to Malawi for a court hearing on our adoption petition.

We're not sure how all of that will come to pass, but we trust that God will make a way, just as we believe God brought this child into our lives.

A winning ticket. A surprise. Divine intervention. Staggering grace.

I'm a mother for the first time.

My heart is fuller than I could ever have imagined.

And Vasco's is whole again, at last.

'I was a stranger, and you took me in.'

The ancient Greeks believed that hospitality was sacred. They called it xenia, the word from which we get “genial” in English.

Showing hospitality to strangers and those far from home was a form of worship to the god Zeus, who was the Greek god of, among other things, travelers.

In the religiosity of xenia, the host was obliged to care for the guests, the guests were required to respect the host, and when the guests left, the host gave them a gift as an expression of what an honor it had been to host them.

Hospitality is a spiritual discipline. In India, for instance, there is a saying: atithi devo bhava, meaning, “the guest is God.” Likewise, in his great Rule, St. Benedict emphasized the importance of hospitality in a life of faith, saying, “Let everyone that comes be received as Christ.”

While the Ronald McDonald House in Oak Lawn, across the street from Hope Children’s Hospital, is not a house of worship, nor does it align itself with any spiritual tradition, it is very much a sacred space, extending hospitality in a powerful and tangible way to the weary families of sick children.

When my husband and I brought Vasco to Hope for heart surgery June 10, the thought of staying steps away at the McDonald house had never crossed our mind. We figured we’d take turns sleeping on a chair in Vasco’s hospital room while the other one drove home to Oak Park for the night.

But at the end of a marathon couple of days at the hospital with Vasco, the 10-year-old AIDS orphan from Malawi we’ve been hosting since April while he undergoes life-saving treatment at Hope, one of his nurses asked us, “Why don’t you stay at the McDonald house?”

A quick call to Kelly Evans, the McDonald house manager, and we had a room. A private room, with two beds and its own bathroom, for as long as we needed it. It was hard to step away from Vasco’s bedside, but walking across the street for a quick nap or a shower was much easier than driving 45 minutes in traffic each way.

I had no expectations when I walked in to the McDonald house late one afternoon, exhausted and carrying only my cell phone. Kevin Kramer, an assistant house manager, met me at the door, shook my hand, asked me if I wanted a cool bottle of water, and guided me to a wood-paneled room with comfy green velvet chairs while he went to get our paperwork.

The McDonald house in Oak Lawn is the fourth McDonald house built in the Chicago area. It opened on Dec. 15, 2008, and is very much a house — not an antiseptic institution or an impersonal hotel. It’s beautiful, well-appointed, and inviting.

Kramer gave me a tour of the 16-bedroom house set back from 93rd Street by a circular driveway and a stand of old-growth trees. There are two wings of the house facing the street, which the architect designed to look like arms reaching out, welcoming families in, he said. I started to get teary.

When he walked me into the kitchen — a fully stocked, enormous kitchen with wood floors and expansive counters, pantries lining the walls and several stainless steel refrigerators with “community” written on them — I began to cry.

The McDonald house people had thought of everything a stressed-out family far from home might need or want. All the house asks is a $10 donation per night, if you can afford it.

I could not have felt more welcome. I could not have been more relieved and blessed to be there, in the company of other families who were going through similar trials, although ours was short by comparison.

One night, my husband walked back to the house from the hospital — a walk Vasco could watch from the window of his intensive care room — around midnight and ran into another father in the kitchen, both of them eating home-cooked leftovers from the community fridge that is stocked daily with meals from volunteer groups. This night it was taco salad. They got to talking and the other man explained that his family had been living at the house for six months. His son, an infant, was born with a heart defect, not unlike Vasco, and has undergone numerous surgeries.

There were other families who were repeat visitors, coming to stay for a few days or a week or a month at a time every few months while their child endured surgery or chemotherapy or testing or rehabilitation.

I didn’t know most of their stories, but I recognized that look in their eyes. The weariness, the fear, the hope and the love.

When Vasco was released from the hospital on Wednesday, we took him to see the house for himself. “Oh . . . beautiful!” he squealed, pointing at the fireplace and the tall spiral staircase that form the hearth and the heart of the house.

Before we left the house, Evans invited Vasco to choose a gift from their immense toy closet. He chose a Tonka helicopter.

The McDonald houses will forever be my charity of choice for donations large and small. A visit to www.rmhccni.org lists all sorts of opportunities to help, from collecting pop tabs to a wish list of things the house needs — plastic to-go containers, gallon jugs of vinegar, portable DVD players, boxes of cereal.

They are doing God’s work. We — and so many others — were strangers and they took us in.

Wee Man's Heart is Whole Again

Thank you, Lord, for what you've done for me.
Thank you, Lord, for what you're doing now.
Thank you, Lord, for ev'ry little thing.
Thank you, Lord, for you made me sing.

— Bob Marley, "Thank You Lord"

The hole in Vasco Sylvester's heart isn't there anymore. On Wednesday, in a three-hour operation, surgeons at Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, using a piece of white Gore-Tex, patched the quarter-size hole that had been there since Vasco was born.

The doctors also removed an extra membrane between the top and bottom chambers of his heart and stitched closed another tiny hole at the top of his aorta. Now, thanks to the miraculous handiwork of his surgical team -- Dr. Michel Ilbawi, Dr. Chawki El Zein and Dr. Anastasios Polimenakos -- his heart is working as God intended.

In the last few days since surgery, each time I've looked at Vasco, the 10-year-old Malawian AIDS orphan my husband and I met nearly two years ago while traveling in Africa, a line from Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" has echoed in my mind:

"The heart is a resilient little muscle."

By the time Vasco was wheeled in to pediatric intensive care at Hope an hour after surgeons closed the four-inch-long incision they'd made in his chest, that resilient little muscle, which had been enlarged from 10 years of working overtime to pump blood despite the huge leak, already had begun to shrink to a normal size.

As Vasco lay in bed, tubes attached to nearly every appendage, I put my hand on his chest. Gone was the violent thunk-thunking of his wounded heart, the rabbit-like beat that violently shook his body even at rest. In its place was the normal butterfly fluttering heartbeat of a child at rest. And at peace.

Vasco has a fierce spirit, like a lion. He's small, but he's amazingly strong. A day after surgery, doctors at Hope, where Wee Man is being treated free of charge, removed the breathing tube in his throat and took him off the ventilator so he could breathe on his own. Friday, he got out of bed, sat in a chair and was well enough that doctors removed the drainage tube from his chest.

Forty-eight hours after surgery, Vasco was sitting up in bed, eating french fries and chicken, laughing at a Jackie Chan movie he has seen at least half a dozen times and joking with Mac, the caregiver who traveled with him from their hometown of Blantyre, Malawi, to Chicago six weeks ago.

His doctors are expecting Vasco to move from ICU to a regular room at Hope over the weekend and to be able to send him home with us to Oak Park to recuperate sometime this week.

A few years back, Mac found Vasco living alone on the streets of Blantyre -- a fate all too common in sub-Saharan countries wracked by AIDS. In Malawi, an estimated 1 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and more than 60,000 of those children, like Vasco, end up living on the streets.

After his mother and father died several years ago, someone put Vasco out on the street to fend for himself, telling the tiny child he'd been cursed by a witch doctor, that ants were eating his heart and that soon he would die.

Vasco knows that was an awful lie and that, far from being cursed, he is so very blessed. He knows his heart has been repaired and that he's going to live a long, healthy life.

Having him in our home these last six weeks, getting to know him -- his sense of humor, quick wit, slow temper and tendency to boss everyone around; his taste in music, food, clothes and friends; his fears and hopes and dreams -- has been the most magical and transformative experience of my life.

Vasco is a blessing. His love and loving spirit have fixed my heart, too.

He has taught me so much. About living and dying. About love and family. About what matters and what doesn't.

I see the world differently for having known him. It's as if the moment he put his hand in mine as we walked to the car on the curb outside O'Hare the day he arrived, my soul was recalibrated.

Everything looks different to me now. And I love it.

It was a long, sometimes tumultuous adventure getting Vasco's heart repaired. There were many times over the nearly two years since we first met the child we call "Wee Man" in a mud-and-wattle hut by the side of the road in Malawi that I thought it might not happen, or that he would die before we could get him here for treatment.

So many people -- family, friends and total strangers -- have walked with us on this journey, supporting us, praying for us, carrying us when we felt as if we couldn't keep going. And to all of you, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

To the folks at United Airlines who went out of their way to bring Vasco and Mac here for free, even though the airline doesn't even fly from Africa: Zikomo kwambiri -- thank you so very much for being his traveling mercies.

To Dr. Andrew Griffin, head of the Heart Institute for Children, who arranged for all of Vasco's treatment at Hope, and to all of the doctors and nurses and orderlies who have shown him (and us) such beautiful compassion and tender care, bless you. You have been God's healing hands for Vasco.

We're not sure what will happen next in Vasco's remarkable life. But today, he has a new lease on it.

Vasco will live, and I believe he will live boldly, paying it forward, his unbroken heart full of love, laughter, grace and promise.

Thank you.

A quick word from Pediatric ICU at Hope Children's Hospital here outside Chicago:

Vasco's recovery is nothing short of miraculous. He's out of bed, about to have his chest tube removed, talking, eating, laughing again. His little lion's heart is working as God intended now. And we are so very grateful - for all the love and prayer and support you've given this child.

Thank you.

To listen to Vasco's story on NPR's "The Story," CLICK HERE.

To read more about how Cathleen met Vasco in Malawi, check out Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace.