Chandy

I met Chandy when she was just 6 days old. It was a few years ago when I was helping one of the youth there learn the alphabet so he could enroll in an English class.

One afternoon as I was walking to his house I saw a mom bathing her very little baby girl. I asked her how old she was – just six days – and she was so cute!

It was quite the joke for a while that I had somehow missed the fact her mom was even pregnant, although to my credit I hadn't really talked to her before that. And so as I said hello to this little one I saw a can of sweet milk sitting there behind them with a spoon in it and I knew that's what she was being fed. I asked why she wasn't nursing her and she said she couldn't. She didn't have enough milk and she didn't have money to buy real formula, but this milk is fine. I was so mad at her for hurting her baby like that.

The hour helping him learn English passed and I went home. Started reading a book about celebrating children and how they have rights and God got me. I had to help.

I bought one small jar of formula for one sweet baby – and when I brought it to them I was humbled by hearing more of their story. Sitting on the steps of her neighbor's house Chandy's mom told me she could not nurse because she has AIDS and she does not want to give that to her baby. And she looked at the formula and said, "but this is the best." All I could say was that this is what your baby needs.

And so every week I would go visit this little baby girl and watch her growing so big and strong and healthy. Later one of the other girls on staff was hanging out down there and told me that while she was talking with Choun she told her that she doesn't have to think about giving her baby away anymore because she knows she'll always be able to feed her.

Chandy is a few months over 2 now. She is living with her dad now and not her mom any longer - so many things have changed in her little life, but she does not have any trace of the virus in her body. She loves her older brother. In spite of all she's faced she seems to be doing well and she remains to be one little girl I am honored to know.