Just a story.
I met Lupe again today. i had come last week to Mount Sinai Hospital on the southwest side of Chicago to get a chest xray to see how my lungs are doing. I had pneumonia back 2017 and have never quite regained the energy level i had before one invisible bug decided to invade my mind, then my body. i had been told i would never fully recover since i now have scars all over my lungs. But i cant afford to lose my mobility so i am gradually pushing myself to keep on moving, whether i can breathe or not.
So family has insisted i go see a doctor to determine 'what's wrong' with me and whether i can improve. So i went and met Lupe, sent there before i saw the radiologist. of course, the cash must be transacted first. But as i am not working here in the US, except for the stories i write for my Kenyan paper, the Business Daily, Lupe gave me a discount on the cost of my xray. it was still almost $100, but it was much improved compared to what i was meant to pay.
Anyway, i was back because i was supposed to get a test checking my heart which i believe is doing just fine. anyway, we determined that the cost of the EKG Echo was almost $5000. Yep, five thousand dollars or more than KSh500,000 or half a million shillings!!! with the discount she kindly offered to give me (who does not have insurance), i would still have to pay $1000 almost, which i do not have. so the test is off.
But Lupe was on. I asked her about her name. Did it have a meaning? oh yes, it was given to her by her mother and it meant Lupe, named after the virgin Mary. she said she was the fifth born out of her mother's eight, but her mom had only lived to be 50 years old. she died of lung cancer since she smoked too much and she also had some other cancer, poor woman. what made matters worse was that after the 8th, the father left them all. he just walked out one day and never walked back in. her mother struggled hard to make ends meet, but Lupe said it was tough.
Her father went and married another woman who had him move to Houston. "She never liked us calling our father because she was suspicious that we would ask him for money." said Lupe. Sadly, she and her siblings never saw their father for 32 years. But one day, the second wife called his son, Lupe's brother and she said she was on her death bed and wanted the children to come collect him and keep him alive cuz she was not going to live long.
'Yes, we went and got him and cared for him until his death," says Lupe, answering my question, what did she do. i was amazed that she and her siblings could be so welcoming of a man who deserted them when they really needed him. But Lupe did not regret keeping him or feeding him his favorite food. she said it gave her pride to know he loved her special bone soup that she made especially for him. she said he devoured it as if it was candy. " That woman never let him have the food and pleasures he really lived," Lupe said, pleased that in spite of his having Alzheimer's and not being fully cognizant of her presence, she was deeply moved to finally have a father to forgive and love. i was touched and told her she was a lovely story teller. she had no reason to tell me her life story. but she had taken to me the first time i had come to her and she had wanted to offer me charity but i didnt have the necessary paper work. what a lovely woman.
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