For a week

Harold lay in Nairobi Hospital

deliriously ill with high fever

    It was a mutant chloroquine-resistant

    strain of malaria

    which he had picked up

     in Zambia

For three of those days

he hovered

between life and death

    Those days

    although filled

    with strain and worry

    were days

    filled with

    the warmest human encounters

    we have ever experienced

Our African friends

came to the hospital

and just sat with us

    How well they know

    the meaning

    of supportive compassion

And during the five weeks

of Harold’s recovery

our house was filled

with their warmth

    Theirs is the gift

    of compassionate sharing

       A sharing that

           gives of one’s self

       A giving that

           weeps with those who weep

           and suffers with those who suffer

A gift bestowed on us

in abundance