CHAPTER 7
On the boat ride backup the Juruá River to our cruise ship, my mind is full of everything I learned about my father and his foundation today.
There are times in your life when you know that an experience will change you – or has the potential to change you. What you choose to do with that potential is up to you, but you can feel it in the deepest parts of yourself: that a door has been opened, and it’s up to you whether or not you step through it. I had one of those rare and precious moments when we entered the hospital building today, and I saw the writing on the wall.
It read:
Bem Vindo á Unidade Hospitalar do Juruá
And directly underneath:
O Centro Adriana Maranhão para Medicina Cardíaca
“Adriana...”
“Maranhão,” supplied an older gentleman with gray hair and white doctor’s coat, who met us at the hospital entrance. “Your...grandmother? I think? Yes?”
I could barely speak, so I nodded, taking ownership, for the first time in my life, of my extended Brazilian family.
He smiled kindly, trying out some rusty English. “Four cardiac center in Amazon. Here. Uarini. Maraa. Tefé. Your father pay for, um... heart hospital.”
When I sobbed, Rio put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him as he spoke in rapid Portuguese to the doctor.
The doctor turned back to me. “You didn’t know.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Your father...” He looked at Rio and spoke in Portuguese.
Finally, Rio squeezed my shoulder. “He says your father was the best of men. He funded these cardiac centers to honor your grandmother, who died of heart failure after contracting Chagas.”
“Chagas?”
“It’s a bacterial disease caused by the bite of a kissing bug.”
“A k-kissing bug? But it sounds f-friendly,” I half-joked through tears.
“It’s not. And for people with undiagnosed heart conditions, it can be deadly.”
“My grandmother had cardiomyopathy.”
“Sí,” said the doctor. “Her heart condition lead to, uh...” He spoke to Rio in Portuguese again.
“Acute heart inflammation,” he’d translated for me.
I looked up at him. “If her heart issues had been known, could they have...?”
Rio had nodded to me and turned back to the doctor, translating my question. The doctor scrunched his face in thought before answering.
“Well,” said Rio, “she may have had a fighting chance if they had known. The doctors didn’t know what they were dealing with.”