In a few days Jose’s sisters were to leave Nicaragua again for their home in the US after their two weeks’ holiday. They had asked for a meeting which greatly pleased me because there were many things that did not run smoothly in the support for Jose.
According to our regulations, every community home resident needs to be represented by only one member of his family so that Ruach does not have to deal with several family members which could cause complications. When Jose joined us, his younger cousin Alfredo was nominated by his two sisters to be the family representative. Alfredo was enthusiastic at first, but two months later he found himself so busy with his own affairs that he did not fulfil his obligations towards Jose. Several conversations with Alfredo were counterproductive as Alfredo stopped visiting Ruach altogether and also could no longer be reached by telephone. Consequently Jose no longer received any family visits which made him sad in his own way.
Meeting
Fast forward to the meeting with the sisters. They informed us that from now on Tania, a female cousin, would be the family’s representative. She and the husband of one of the sisters were also present in the meeting. We agreed on what we should be expecting from Tania. The sisters said they were sad that they got so little support from their family in caring for Jose and that they were happy that he was now living with us.
The sisters were scheduled to travel back to the US on Monday. They asked us whether they could take Jose with them after our meeting to spend their remaining days together as a family. This was a normal request in a way, and it had happened before during the sisters’ holiday, but it broke our rule that we need to receive advance notice. However, we packed his bag, made the packing list and we arranged that Jose would be away for a maximum of two nights, because Jose is often upset when getting back home after a longer time away. They promised to bring Jose back on Sunday.
An unexpected development
We got a phone call late on Sunday afternoon. One of the sisters asked whether they could bring him back on Monday. Knowing that Jose would be unsettled after a longer time away, I said this would not be desirable and referred to our agreement in the meeting a few days earlier.
They did not appreciate me having said that. One hour later they arrived at the community home together with Tania, a brother and a legal representative. I asked Tania who would be involved in this impromptu meeting, but before she could give an answer one of the sisters mentioned that Jose would not come back at all. The cat was among the pigeons. Dialogue was out of the question. Even now I still do not understand what caused the situation to escalate over the head of Jose whose interests are not served by it. They left. And because they could not take all of Jose’s belongings with them, it was arranged that Tania would return the next day.
And then …
And so it happened. Alfredo, Tania and I had a quiet conversation to try to understand what had happened. They said they knew that Jose felt at home at Ruach, so they did not agree with the decision, but that their opinion did not carry any weight. Jose now lives with Alfredo and his young family; fortunately not with his own brother who did not look after Jose well before he moved to Ruach.
We ache for Jose, but we hope of course that he is OK. We also hope that Jose’s short stay with us has given his family some idea how Jose can be looked after in a better way. Miracles do exist!