28. Hard Times: Madala

Near the beginning of December I finally got my car back and was back on the road again. I hadn’t been able to visit Jonathan in the hospital because I hadn’t had a car.
Just when I had decided to go visit him, I had heard that he had gotten kicked out of the hospital for being “difficult”.
I still didn’t see him for a few days but then one night, when I was driving around with a group of kids, I saw him across the road when I was stopped at a red light.
He yelled, “RYAN!!!” and then commented about the new car. He asked me to drive over to him and I told him that I would just drop off the kids that were in my car and come back around to him in a few minutes.
I dropped off kids and then went back to the place that I had seen Jonathan, but he wasn’t there.
I looked all over for him but he was nowhere to be found. I asked a few people and they all said stuff like, “Oh, he was just here!” and other similar things.
It was strange!
I didn’t ever see Jonathan awake again after that. I looked for him the next few days but still could not find him. The next week I got a call one day when I was downtown.
They told me that Jonathan had just been walking across the street when he collapsed, went into convulsions, and started coughing up blood.
He was rushed to the hospital. I went to the hospital as fast as I could. I ran into the emergency unit and then back into the room that they had Jonathan in.
I looked into the room and saw Jonathan lying on the hospital bed.
His body was being lifted off the bed from violent seizures. I walked into the room and the doctor totally snapped at me.
She said, “This isn’t a spectacle or a show for you to just watch! Get out of here!!!”
I guess she didn’t realize that I knew him but it upset me in a big way. My friend that was with me could see I was upset and he started to lead me out of the room.
I think I said some things that were not very nice as I was being escorted out.
I understood if I wasn’t supposed to be in there but the fact of the matter is, I was only there because I care about Jonathan and there is a decent way of asking someone to leave.
I found out that the blood Jonathan had coughed up on the street when he collapsed was actually what was left of his lungs. He went into a seriously unstable condition very fast.
I decided to leave and come back later to visit him.
I actually came back the next morning. When I got there, the nurse seemed happy that I was there to see Jonathan and told me that the doctor needed to talk to me and asked me to wait out in the waiting room.
I waited and waited and waited!
I waited for about thirty minutes and then got impatient and went and asked what was going on. The nurse informed me that the doctor would only be another minute.
I went back to the waiting room and waited for another fifteen minutes. Finally, they came out and informed me that Jonathan had died five minutes before I got there.
I felt my stomach fall to the floor. My whole body went numb. I got a huge lump in my throat and could not even respond to what they had told me.
They asked me if I would be able to inform the parents and I told them that another organization was already busy with that and I gave them that organization’s contact details.
The family was informed but, as they had told me before, they didn’t care and didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
They didn’t even show up to the funeral.
The other organization paid for and arranged the funeral. It really was a special time. They had it in a church right in the middle of downtown. There were street people, people from different organizations, and other people that had befriended Jonathan over the years.
Some of the people got up and shared what Jonathan meant to them. I also got up and shared what an amazing kid he was and tried to remind everybody of his funny, yet peaceful way of interacting with people.
Jonathan’s death was probably the hardest for me because I felt no closure whatsoever.
I can, however look back and think of the funny times that we spent together and I see it as a huge privilege to have gotten to spend the time with him that I did.
That series of months are some of the hardest and most trying times I have been through while living in Cape Town. Sure, there have been plenty of hard times here and there but that seemed like a season where there was no holding back.
I definitely came out of it stronger and learned from each one of those situations.
As I said before, the amazing thing is I never once wanted to give up. I never once wanted to “go home”. Each situation, each trial that came my way, only made me want to fight harder to come out on top.
I am amazed at the grace I experienced during that time and the faithfulness of God to encourage me day in and day out. That was definitely a season where I was able to see how precious, yet fragile life really is.