Day 8: Thank God I got to be a human.

Evening feels like night, and night feels like it’s time for bed. Even though it’s not yet 10 p.m. I will never appreciate winter.

Pretoria is my home again, and I have re-ensconced myself into life here. I am back to wearing my purse unfashionably in the front (or not at all), rather than casually, and without second thought, behind me. Pretoria is a different man’s land.

My weekend was wonderful. Nelson Mandela Day was on Sunday, and in celebration it is common for South Africans to take part in community service. So I did as the South Africans do. I’m practically a local.

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At 10 a.m. two of the Kalmers’ friends (whose names I can’t even begin to spell, much less pronounce) pick Christine and me up from the house. We drive to a house for orphaned and abandoned babies, bringing gifts of “nappies” and infant formula. And more love than we can carry.

We are met by the coo and cry of thirteen bouncing and beautiful babies, within a house whose interior is lined with cribs and swings. This place is the home of babies aged five days to one year, and they each have a sobering story of tragedy and rebirth.

Most of the babies, we are told, are found on the side of the road – in trash cans and in boxes, left for dead. Their birthdays are unknown, as well as their ages. These babies’ real birthdays, though, are mostly meetings with death. Fortunately, the people who run this orphanage save them from a meeting that makes too much progress. In this home they are nurtured back to life by living angels.

Keletso, who is one year old and prematurely reaching her toddler stage, is the first baby I meet. She greets us wordlessly with kicks and made-up words from the arms of one of the house mothers. Keletso extends her arms to each of us, and we, in turn, hold her.

She reaches for me a second time, and instantly our bond is made.

I hold this precious baby close and kiss her soft sweet cheek. We’re a magical pair from the very beginning, and for nearly a full hour, she will not leave my arms. She protests with angry, heart-breaking cries every time I attempt to set her down to play with me and a toy. She doesn’t want toys, she wants arms. So I oblige and keep her for the duration of our stay. She leads me around the house with leans – to the magnets on the fridge, to the backyard door, to the kitty around the corner, to nowhere. She knows what she wants, and there is absolutely no doubt that Keletso is brilliant.

Her history, though only a year in the making, has made this beautiful baby girl strong.

Keletso, like too many of the other babies, was found in a dumpster. She was so dirty and so weak, they were sure she would die. They brought her into the home and began a long and uncertain recovery. The muck was so plastered on her newborn skin it took weeks to fully clean her. Underneath the layers of grime, her skin was pink and sensitive. They rubbed Vaseline on her and fed her and loved her, and she grew healthy and thick and as perfect as any one-year-old baby can be.

A family from northern Europe has adopted Keletso, who is awaits them, unknowing.

But for the time that I am here, she is mine. She has claimed me. To place her in other arms for even a moment – so I can take my jacket off! – causes her to have a flinging, whaling fit. She’s perfectly fine and dandy, thank you, when she returns to me.

I have fallen in love. With this warm, pink home; with my feisty Keletso, who won’t let me go; with all these abandoned babies; and I so love their compassionate caretakers.

I think there is nothing greater than loving. It is the soul’s provider of life.

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Every Sunday afternoon, the Kalmers make a big lunch and sit together as a family to eat it. I was so happy to be a part of it. Christine cooked up a traditional rice salad and sugared up some pumpkin to bake in the oven. Mr. Kalmer grilled some perfectly tender, red, rare meat (my favorite).

Family is a sign of God.

Family is exactly what religion wants to be. It is love that doesn’t need practice or reminding – totally and utterly born in our hearts upon our first breaths. Family is instant and unquestioned because there isn’t grounds for doubt; it can’t be proven wrong or defeated. Family is forever, in both directions. Family is a part of you and you are a part of it. Family has never faded, nor gone out of style. And it never will. But above all things that family is and religion wishes to be, family is real, raw, and rugged love. And it is this element of life – this automatic, unrehearsed and totally instinctual family love – that has the power to give life its worth.

I loved sitting with another family and witnessing that. Because I have that at home, and I love that other people have that, too. I want everyone to have that.

The picture is too good to hoard. It’s something that longs to be shared, and it’s something all people who lack it long to have (whether they can know this or not). What is most profound is that it’s not just a belief – it’s a tangible part of life. It’s a Pa to hug for as long as you like, a mom to have as your best friend, three sisters to keep you young forever, a Gigi to cook you hotel breakfasts, an aunt to share a passion with, an uncle to give you unyielding support, six cousins to laugh at childhood memories with...

God gives us families so families can show us God.

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