“Sanya, Sanya, Sanya… ” I sat up abruptly in bed thinking it might be Fitzroy calling for my help, but when I looked at the time it was 3 a.m. I felt so exhausted that I decided I must have been dreaming. I was going back to sleep when I heard the voice calling again, “Sanya, Sanya, please come here.” I got up as quickly as I could and rushed to the tiny living room where he lay on a twin size adjustable bed.

The room was small and smelled like stale urine and disinfectant. A glass table with two chairs, which should have been used for eating, was instead strewn with hospital bills and cleaning ointments for his wound and tubes. Nevertheless a black leather couch and an old television gave the room a homey feeling.

Fitzroy, Brother T as I like to call him, was paralyzed from the neck down. At first I thought it might have been the result of a tragic accident, but when I worked up the nerves to ask, he said when he was a teenager, the doctor told him that one day would wake up and not be able to walk anymore. And that’s exactly what happened. Except that instead of him just not getting up out of bed, it happened on the way to church.

I met Brother T and his wife Latoya at church one Sunday in 2010. I had just immigrated to America from Jamaica. At the time he could move his arms and he used to play the musical instruments at church, the piano and guitar. After church was dismissed that Sunday, he was still playing the piano and I was watching him play. He moved his fingers so gracefully and effortlessly over the keys that it had me in a daze.

“Hey, can you play?” he said when he saw me looking at him.

“No,” I smiled shyly, “but I would love to learn how to.”

“OK…. Let me teach you a song.”

And he did.

Just then his wife came along. We spoke for about 10 minutes and realized we might be related because we have the same last name, “Henry.” We hit it off from there because the three of us share a kindred spirit and it felt like I had known them long before then. We’ve been friends ever since.

Every morning his wife leaves for work at 6 a.m. and returns at 9 p.m. Sometimes other church members would visit him and bring him food and feed him, but you know how it is with guys and their pride. He preferred to wait until his wife got home to take care of him.

In the year 2013 after I graduated from high school, I took my first semester off from college because my son was six months old and I did not feel comfortable leaving him at daycare. Since I was not attending school and I was unemployed, I had a lot of time to kill. Instead of spending my days watching television and reading romance novels, I decided to help my fellow church brother and sister out.

Friends and family always ask me why I am doing this, if I am getting paid. The thing is I like helping people and the bible says, “…do good unto others” and good things will happen to you… or something of the sort. That’s why I’m interested in the medical field even though taking care of Brother T is more like a Home Health Aid job.

When I called Latoya and offered her my service, she was so overwhelmed with joy that she started crying. Brother T was sick and she had all these bills and debts piling up on her. She needed the overtime at work, but because he was ill, she had to leave work early to come home to attend to him. The day I arrived he was lying in bed. All he could do to greet me was turn his head and smile. He couldn’t move his arms, and he needed assistance to move his neck, due to the excruciating pain he has to endure if he is in one position for too long. When I saw him, tears came to my eyes. He was so skinny you could count the bones in his rib cage. I spoke with him for a few and got settled in.

“Hey, Brother T, how’ve you been, long time don’t see,” I said smiling.

“Boy, life isn’t easy,” he replied, “but I just got to put my life and trust in God and he will make a way. I’m still holding on and having faith for my deliverance and breakthrough one day…..”

“Yes, that’s good, we just got to keep trusting God. He will make a way when there seems to be no way.”

It was a one-bedroom apartment, which had a small bathroom with a white tub that had turned to cream and a tiny kitchen infested by smart mice that you can never see nor hear in action. Somehow they manage to leave a trail of filth on the stove each night when everyone has gone to bed. Latoya hasn’t used the bedroom since Brother T had gotten ill, so that’s where I stayed. She sleeps on the couch in the living room with him, even though she doesn’t get much sleep because he wakes her up during the night to maybe change his position, give him something to drink, or itch somewhere for him.

Every day from around 7 a.m. until his wife comes home (except on weekends), I get up and make him breakfast, watch Jeopardy and Maury, make him lunch, and, if there aren’t any leftovers from the previous day, cook dinner. Throughout that period he calls me several times to either help him change the position of his neck, or adjust the bed, or stretch out his legs and position his hands on a pillow. I have no problem doing all of this because he has a good sense of humor and he keeps my day interesting with his love stories about how he and Latoya met when they were teenagers and he was in a wheelchair. At the time she wouldn’t give him the time of day, but he didn’t give up. He kept pestering her until she reluctantly gave in to a date and they hit it off from there. They later got married when they were 19 years of age. Of course, her parents didn’t agree with the idea of their daughter marrying a guy in a wheelchair. To them, she was throwing away her life, but who were they to come in the way of true love? They got married, and, at the age of 22, immigrated to the U.S., where they are still together and holding on strong. This story has me believe that God made someone for everyone.

When he is in a sitting position, there is a small adjustable table that is placed in front of him that holds a removable telephone in a box and a cup with pencils in it that are wrapped with tape on top of them. Whenever the phone rings, the pencils are positioned in front of him so that he can pick one up with his mouth and then use it to press buttons on the phone to either accept or decline a call. His sisters call and check up on him every day and so does his mom, but in my opinion that is not enough. I never once saw any of them visit him, and I know this bothers him at times since they all live in New York.

On weekends his wife is home, so I can go hang out with my friends if she does not need my help to do anything around the house. On Saturdays she does the laundry and starts cooking the peas and meat for Sunday’s dinner because we usually go to church. One particular Sunday the church was going away on a retreat. I was looking forward to going, but Latoya really wanted to go as well, so I decided to cancel in order for her to go because I figured she needed the break more than I did. After all, all I had to do was just feed him, brush his teeth, change the position he was lying in and keep him company. It was no big deal to me.

I had another thing coming. The Friday night before Latoya went away she bathed him and changed his clothes and the urine bag because she would not be back until Sunday. Before she left she gave me a couple numbers to call in case of an emergency.

“Ohhh,” she sighed deeply, “I really need this break. I haven’t gotten a full night rest ever since he got sick.”

I smiled, having an idea of what she was talking about since I have a little baby boy myself. At the time he was only seven months old and quite active for his age, but the good thing is he sleeps through the night. Even though he doesn’t wake up, I am conscious of every little sound and movement he makes. My mom was right. Once you have a kid, you are always awake because you listen out for them even while sleeping.

That night I was really tired. I stayed up with him until 12 in the morning because I knew he would feel rather lonely with his wife gone. Besides that, I had had a rough day, following behind a rather curious baby and attending to Brother T at the same time. It felt like taking care of two babies at once. The only difference was that one baby lies still on a bed, while the other roams around pulling down stuff and putting whatever he can find on the floor in his mouth. That night as I lay down in bed I didn’t even have time to think. I was totally knocked out with exhaustion.

It felt like a minute since I was asleep when I heard someone calling my name. At first I just thought I was dreaming, but I kept hearing it over and over again. I opened my eyes and lay still, listening. My eyelids felt so heavy. As I was about to go back to sleep, I heard the voice calling my name again. It took a minute to register that Brother T was calling me. I got up and went to him. When I looked at the clock it was 3 in the morning. I felt like screaming, I was so tired. I had to change the position he was in, help him turn his neck, stretch out his legs, give him some water to drink and rub his eyes because they were burning him. By the time I was finished doing all of that, it was already 4 o’clock. He couldn’t sleep, so he asked me to turn on the television and put him in a sitting position. After I was through I decided to take a quick shower so that I would be completely knocked out and have a late morning. When I was about to go back to bed, I heard him calling me again and reluctantly went to his aid. He wanted me to put him back into a sleeping position because he had finally started getting sleepy. It was 5 o’clock. When I finally lay my head down to rest, I was reluctant to close my eyes, waiting to see if he would call again. He didn’t so I drifted off to sleep. I probably was dreaming about taking a cruise to the Bahamas when I felt something stirring beside me. Then I felt little hands on my face and someone saying “Mama.” My eyes flew open. It must have taken every fiber in me not to scream. The baby was up and I had gotten just one hour of sleep. It was now 6 o’clock.