In the morning, just after Genet tells us the story about her rabies treatment, the phone rings. We’re actually in good spirits, knowing that we can take M to the Swedish clinic to get the damned shot. I answer it, and it’s Gelila from the office. I say hi and ask how she is. She’s fine, she says, but she has some bad news. There’s a catch in my throat as I wait for it. Sweet Girl died last night, she says. Shit. I listen to her explain how she died in the night and there’s a funeral in the afternoon and would we go? I tell her yes and hang up the phone.

And then my knees give out.

I don’t remember how long I cry. I’m sobbing–big, heaving, snot-filled sobs that suck all the air out of me and I just can’t stop. M is in the other room, and I can hear her crying from across the house. Genet is wailing in the kitchen, and T is breathing deeply beside me. I don’t know when I have last cried like this. I am devastated and horrified and so, so angry. What kind of a world is this where an 8-year-old girl can die like this? What kind of a world is this where an 8-year-old girl can die?

And oh God, it’s Sweet Girl. My little friend who would sneak up behind me and hold my hand, who would pose for sassy pictures, who would whisper that she loved me, who had the most beautiful crooked little smile I have ever seen. I can’t breathe and I don’t want to. I have  lost control of myself completely and I cry until I am so drained that I can do nothing but sit and stare at the wall.

Eventually, we go to little AHOPE to prepare for the funeral. The atmosphere is dulled, with the nannies walking around with tear-stained faces, and the office staff stonefaced. Mama Genet just cries. I hug Tigist and tell her I am so sorry. She was a beautiful girl. Tigist is sorry too.

The funeral is unlike Baby S’s. Sweet Girl had no family left. She was living with her mother until she died, and then her neighbors cared for her until they brought her to AHOPE. The neighbors come to the funeral, but there is none of the keening that went on before. Unlike the other funeral, the staff is crying openly. Everyone loved Sweet Girl, and she will be missed.

Afterwards, we go back to AHOPE for a coffee ceremony. We sit quietly as the neighbors talk to each other and the kids try to peek in the room. Gelila tells me that they know something’s up and that one of them said Sweet Girl was stabbed with scissors. I look around, wondering what happens to the memory of a girl like this. Her family is dead. The staff and the neighbors will remember her, but will she eventually be forgotten completely?

I hope not. I try to believe that a girl who brought so much light into the world will be remembered.

Goodbye, Tsion. I love you.