“Parar é Morrer” -Avo Albertina

Some of us are fortunate enough to experience a moment, that moment in our lives when ever thing begins to seem clearer. When life and its purposes become, if only for a moment, comprehensible. The wise hold to these moments and seek to emulate the lessons learned throughout life. My moment occurred in the hen-pecked yard of a frail African grandmother.  The message she shared with me that day has come to define my life and my passions. It is my life motto. It is the reason for this blog and inspire the change I hope to be in this world.

Avo Albertina was our frail African neighbor. She was only 62, but by African standards she seemed ancient. Her black face was wrinkled with time and her deep blue eyes had seen much suffering. We passed her small vegetable stand almost daily. She meekly sold her simple goods in hopes of one day having the long sought money to free her imprisoned son. Avo Albertina was raised Catholic, but has never truly left her tribal roots. She sat on the low cement barrier near the dust strewn thoroughfare, her worn feet dangling as she smiled to everyone. She was simple. She was innocent.  I was sick and she gave me an old moldy grapefruit, insisting it would help. Miraculously it did help. I offered to pay her and she refused telling me to pay her the next day. We passed by and I offered again, but I already knew that it would be just another day in the saga of “pay me tomorrow.” She was charitable. Her excuse for postponing my payment was that she had a son in another country and if she believed that if she took care of another mother’s son, another mother would take care of hers. She needed the money.

We passed by one day and she was not in her usual spot. As we approached I began to worry. Maybe she is sick. We decided to check in to it and found her at her simple grass hut. She was running late. I saw her usual table in the corner of the yard and offered to carry it out. As I grabbed the table Avo Albertina shouted,

“Don’t touch that table!”

I was taken aback. Why won’t she let me touch her table? I just wanted to help. As I wondered to myself, she walked over to the table, and with surprising agility raised it on her head. I was shocked that her fragile frame could support its weight. I saw her canvas bag heavy with grapefruit, lemons, lettuce, eggplant, and a menagerie of other foods sitting on the other side of the yard leaning against the familiar tin gate. I quickly crossed the yard offering to carry the bag, but again I heard,

“Don’t touch that!”

She wobbled over to the gate and in a dance of ragged cloth and gray hair she maneuvered the heavy bag on top of the table on her head. Moaning a little under her load she smiled at me. I felt a bit of a fool as my young agile body stood there free of any load while her frail ancient body groaned under the weight of a wooden table and a large bag of fruit. I foolishly said the only thing that came to my mind,

“Avo Albertina you are so strong!”

Avo Albertina stopped dead in her tracks and brought her face close to mine. Her deep blue eyes pierced mine fiercely in a gaze that seemed to grasp my very heart. When she was certain she had my attention she said,

“Elder, Parar é Morrer!”

Parar é Morrer, to stop is to die! Those simple words penetrated into my soul and opened my mind. To stop is to die. This little frail African woman continued to cling to life with this simple philosophy. She kept going because if she stopped she would die as she had seen so many do. What a profound concept; physically… spiritually… mentally. Was this life’s greatest lesson? To stop is to die.

Perhaps my influence in Africa has been minimal, but its influence on me has been profound and irreversible. As my life continues and I seek to follow my heart and my passion, I will be guided by the life lessons I have learned from the African people, the greatest of which being “to stop is to die.”