Viki

We lost one of our regular visitors to the Secret Garden while we were in the UK. Viki had been ill with cancer for a good while. A very poor woman who didn't have much of a life, she used to come regularly, bringing her two daughters with her, one with severe mental disabilities and HIV positive and the other with two young children, one a baby with health problems. Viki refused our offers of help to get to the hospital in Cluj 5 hours away, where she had a chance of a new treatment. She said to me that she couldn't go because she had to look after her family for as long as she could.

The last time I saw Viki was just before I left for the UK. She came in a wheelchair as she could no longer walk. We do not yet have a disabled ramp due to lack of finances but we usually manage to lift people up the four steps. Viki was swollen up with fluid and too heavy to lift, but she struggled out of the wheelchair and crawled up the steps on her hands and knees as she wanted to have a shower. I cried as I watched helplessly at the sight of this poor lady struggling away in order to be clean. After her shower Viki talked to be about the future - she was worried about her daughters and grand daughters and she said to me "I'll do my best for them while I still breathe but when I'm gone then God will have to take care of them, there's nothing more I can do."