Live in Love: Meet Thobile

She has the heart of a warrior and a beautiful smile. Her body, however, is wasting away, as fragile as a baby bird. She has HIV/AIDS, multi-drug resistant TB, malnutrition, and pain in her legs that make it difficult to walk. She has been in the hospital twice in the past 3 weeks. When we visited her during the most recent admission the sight was almost too much to bear. The hospital ward was so crowded we found Thobile lying on the floor, under another patient’s bed.

Her mother sat faithfully on the cold, hard floor next to her, where she also slept each night. Thobile was shivering, breathing hard, had high fever, could not walk and weighed less than we had ever seen. We knelt down beside her, leaning in under the bed above her. Then we realized she was reaching up to us. Not with her arms or her head, but with her beautiful smile, shining through her darkness for a moment to convey her joy and love at seeing us, of us simply being there with her. That’s the thing about choosing to Live in Love. It doesn’t matter what you can or can’t do. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick or healthy, rich or poor. What does matter is being there, reaching out with a simple smile in the midst of pain and suffering to ensure someone knows how much you appreciate them, how much you love them. Thobile did not speak that night but her smile said more than any words could. Take a moment today and smile. Really smile. A genuine meaningful smile. It’s another simple way to Live in Love.

A few days later, Thobile was off the floor and on a small cot. Her pain had decreased, her fever was down, and her smile was strong.