To My Sisters

The plan for this weekend was to join a friend and his students as they went down to Mexico and spent Saturday with children in various orphanages in the ramshackle city of Tijuana. I almost didn’t make it after buying a ticket to Denver for the All-Star Game, until my roommate made fun of me for bailing on orphans to fawn over millionaire basketball players. After she said that, I got sick and called Orbitz. Luckily, I discovered Orbitz allows one courtesy cancellation within 24 hours of making your reservation, and I got my money back.

My roommate felt horrible for making a joke that altered my entire weekend. All I can say to her is, “Thank you.”

The ride down on Saturday was entertaining, as my friend and I passed a little time discussing particle physics and string theory with his students; topics that couldn’t have seemed further from what we were driving toward. Then we crossed the border, and I came to realize that mere miles from the paradise setting of San Diego was a city so impoverished that it reminded me of the decrepitude and filth in the poorest areas of Thailand. But Thailand was on the other side of the planet, and that’s how I made sense of it. Imagine, now, having only to walk across a border no more foreboding than a strip mall.

We arrived at an orphanage and entered a room filled with small children and bunk beds. It was dark and raided by flies, smelling like sewage with mud covering the floor. The place was close to squalor. It reminded me of the Thai orphanage my sister was from.

In third grade, I’d visited the orphanage before we had “picked her out.” These tiny children were bald, ate dirt, and were covered head to toe in baby powder since the caretakers couldn’t wash them regularly. Then, after one tiny girl in the lot joined our family, it still took her months to be rid of the worms in her body.

By then her hair grew back and her distended belly grew in, and Sarah has since grown into a beautiful young woman.

Then there’s my new sister, who was left for dead in an orphanage in Cambodia. She was lying in a basket, only a few months old, sweating in the heat beside a handicapped child. The orphanage determined she was HIV positive and could only reserve their very limited resources for the healthy children. My mom took her in to live her life out comfortably, but Sophie turned out to be free of any virus and she is now a full-fledged Fleming.

But before I could even feel pity for these poor children in Mexico, a young boy around the age of five ran up to me and found his way into my arms. So many of the kids were like that; laughing and smiling, and for the next few hours we forgot about the poor plumbing and the dearth of potable water. The flies also seemed to disappear, and when the children weren't climbing all over my friend, I'd find him with one infant or another in his arms.

And these were the lucky ones. They were the small percentage of kids that were able to find their way to an orphanage as opposed to living on the streets.

Now, I’m in my apartment, writing this posting when a friend called to ask me if I was watching the All-Star Game. I’d forgotten it was on.

Thinking about the possibilities of where my two sisters could be now if not for such chance encounters and simple decisions can throw a person into an existential tailspin. But string theory, which is the best explanation we have on our physical existence as yet, poses that there is a fantastic amount of parallel universes out there. Combine that with basic probability, and that must mean there is a universe out there that is filled with all the missed chances and regrets that we couldn’t already pack into this one.

But, conversely, that also means we exist in one of those slices of universe that just happens to have limitless opportunity and, thankfully, many second chances.

"I'll do what I want with my pants."