Lupita’s Bright Spirit
May 14th, 2012
by Jennifer Ludders
Although of course all of the kids on the cancer ward are precious in their own way, there are a few who definitely stand out for me in my memory. Little 3-year-old Lupita is one of these. The spark that shone through her bright brown eyes made it clear to me when I met her that she had a very wise old soul in a small bloated body.
She had been in the hospital for more than three months receiving treatment. Only patches of hair remained on her head from the chemotherapy and her body was covered in little pink splotches, a sign that immunity is low and more platelets are needed. When I first met Lupita, she did not look like she was in particularly good shape. She had clumps of blood under her nose and seemed very much in pain. Her mother was by her side day and night – she couldn’t even go to the bathroom or shower without Lupita screaming out for her. Like a couple of other mothers in the room with their babies, Lupita’s mother slept every night on her chair at the bedside, resting her head next to her daughter’s and only changing clothes about once a week.
A couple days after I arrived, Lupita’s condition worsened. Like Miriam, she experienced a fever, but her little body was already very weak from a prolonged period of deterioration. Her mother looked extraordinarily distraught and distant as she sat beside Lupita, weeping. It didn’t look like Lupita would make it through the night. I did some Reconnective Healing for both Lupita and her mother. Deborah did some Reiki and sent out a message to her contacts requesting more energy and healing for Lupita, to which many people enthusiastically responded.
Later that day, Deborah returned to the hospital to work with another patient. She stopped by the cancer ward to get a tapping points sheet and Lupita called out to her while she was way down the hall: “Deborah!!!” Surprised, Deborah went into the room to find Lupita sitting up, surrounded by toys, with a huge smile on her face. Was this really the same little girl whose condition had been so grave just a few hours before? Deborah was amazed, as was I when I heard about it. But sure enough, the next day when I went in, Lupita was exactly the same – sitting up energetically, playing, acting silly and showing me how she likes to tap on herself.
Her spirit was showing itself so brightly and it was clear that, even without words, she was saying to us all: “Don’t underestimate me! I still have stuff to do here in this life, even if it’s just to show you how resilient I can be.” She sure did show me.
Lupita
