LIFE HERE IS A PIECE OF MUSIC

Hello Caritas family, today from all over the world, we invite you to come to Vietnam and listen to the song "Winter melons and gourds should love each other" that the psychopaths (mental illness patients) at the Social Protection Facility Trong Duc association with the host family, Caritas Da Lat and many other hearts are singing every day. To describe the brotherhood here, we will use the image of a piece of music. In which, each person in Trong Duc, from the patient to the assistant, each one represents a musical note. Those notes were written by the One we call the Father – God – “Did not he who made me in the womb made them? And did not one fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31, 15. NRSVCE) - is the One who made us all, therefore we are brothers. And in the context at Trong Duc, we are brothers.

The brothers (patients) who are adopted by the establishment owner here, they are people who suffer with mental illness. Most of them have been abandoned by their families for a long time. Therefore, they need love and care. Caritas Da Lat has been serving in Trong Duc for more than 5 years with the goal of enhancing dignity and improving the quality of life for brothers and sisters (patients) through health care and improving mental health through psychosocial therapies. The journey of the past 5 years started from the fact that the diocese of Da Lat saw the need for healing and full service in these brothers and sisters. The spirit of Caritas always involves a fraternal relationship with everyone. And we are aware that the goal of the service program here is a "solution" to help their life have “the conditions needed for dignified life and integral development" (citation from Fratelli Tutti, 129). Do you know that? The brothers here mostly have consciousness, thinking and behavior disorder. By helping them to practice basic habits such as washing hands, brushing teeth, or participating in activities such as washing dishes, cleaning the house, reading books, praying rosaries, making crafts, watching TV, and participating in holiday events organized by us, the patient's brothers and sisters have improved in their consciousness and actions.

It's really fun to hear, isn't it? But while we are working, we sometimes feel impatient as when you are bored with your children. But after overcoming those difficulties, it will be joy that comes from the heart, comes suddenly through many different images that we receive while serving, including two images that we will be mentioned below.

Image 1: They themselves taking care of each other and here is the “brotherhood”

In the facility, there are many groups of recovered patients with light syndrome who participate in service tasks such as drying and folding clothes, washing dishes, cleaning the house, preparing meals, and younger patients taking care of the elderly and frail. At the facility there are couples walking together, they help each other, feed each other and bath their friend when he is not able to take care for himself. Many times before the death of a brother, there are many people worried, crying ... and many people standing in front of the medical room to pray. Some sketches of the brothers here evoke the "selfless" sacrifice of the poor for each other. It is from the wealth of affection strangers have for each other that we find many “good Samaritans” in a mental institution.

The story of Mr. Vo Phuong Huu Bao

Everyday, one patient is in charged taking clothes from the washing machine and takes them out to the yard to dry. When it rained, he hurriedly called other brothers to collect his things. Dry clothes will be neatly arranged for the next day. His motive for service is gratitude and a desire to holiness. We don't think like that ourselves, but there were many times he said: "I've been here for 18 years, if this facility were not here I would have died, living in here I don't have to do anything and my stomach will be full and have a warm sleep each day”. What about the desire to be holy? One day at a singing practice, I asked: "Did Bao ask Our Lady for anything?" He replied: "I just ask for a good death in the hands of Miss Maria, if you look at Monday and Wednesday, you will have a good death in the hands of Miss Maria". Through small examples, we see that the good deeds that we do for the poor brothers and sisters are the perfect testimony of love from which to motivate the love to spread. Those who are cared by us are committed to caring for and serving others.

Second picture: Friends remind us

When we live among brothers in here, we are the “normal” minority. So we were turned into "crazy" people in their normal lives. Sometimes we were absent-minded and they reminded us. Sometimes it's the scissors left on the medical table when the door’s medical room is still open, the key left at the door and sometimes an idiom that someone has written outside the door of the infirmary: "Medicine is like a passion mother". There was a brother who specialized in writing on the wall, and whether by accident or purpose, he wrote "Medicine like a passion mother" in front of the doctor's office door. It made us feel warm because of the love the brothers had for us, but that was not the case; it is also a reminder for us not to neglect the professional ethics of a physician. Finally, sometimes when we examination our conscience, we find that we are really the same, happy, sad, tired, and angry. But beyond the similarities in human characteristics, the love feelings we give to each other are the most similar.

In a society where exclusion is pervasive, at times our brothers and sisters are seen as a burden to be removed or depleted. But through the two images we have just looked at, we can see: “Each of them is able to offer “a unique contribution to the common good through their remarkable life stories” (quoting Fratelli Tutti, 98). The gift we give to them, they give to each other and from them back to us helps both us and our (patients) brothers to grow in a new way as Pope Francis said: “Indeed, when we open our hearts to those who are different, this enables them, while continuing to be themselves, to develop in new ways.” (from Fratelli Tutti, 134)

Life here is a song and the chorus of “brotherhood” and it will be repeated over and over. Although there are many flats next to the notes, the song still has a joyful sound because we know that:

"Let's give each other thousands of loves

Let's give each other happiness and pain

The heart gives us a place to take refuge

To forget a lot of wasted days”

     (excerpt from Let's Fall in Love - Trinh Cong Son)