On July 20, Benedito was moved to an orphanage, one day before his birthday. Benedito until that day thought there was no way his life could be any worse than it already was, but it turned out to be even worse and more miserable. It was not only the children who made him a punching bag now, but also the people who worked at the orphanage, and sometimes even people from the street came to beat him!
With poor nutrition and almost no medical care, Benedito became malnourished and did not even have the strength to lift his arms. But on November 4, 2010, Benedito could not stand it any longer and decided to take action.
Even though he was only 6 years old at the time, Benedito had already seen more of life than many teenagers and adults. Even though he thought that life should not be lived, he would live it, whatever the cost.
Benedito no longer had a wheelchair to move around in, it was broken by the director of the orphanage the same month Benedito arrived. She said that the squeaking sound the old wheelchair made was annoying.
With the help of a beggar who passed in front of the orphanage every week, Benedito created a new way to get around. He took a wooden board from an old wardrobe that had been thrown away, and wheels from a broken toy, and put them under the wooden board, thus creating an ugly kind of skateboard made out of garbage.
Although it was incredibly uncomfortable, Benedito was happy that he got a way to move around. After all, that was better than crawling around on the ground.
Over the past two weeks, Benedito made a point of always taking good notice of several things, such as where and how the food that the NGOs sent to the orphanage was stored, who would guard the doors, and if there were soldiers in front of the orphanage and how often they passed in front of the orphanage.
Of course, these calculations and observations are subject to error. As mature as he was, Benedito was still only 6 years old, and to be able to concentrate on something as tedious as watching soldiers walking down the street for more than 40 minutes was already a great achievement.
Benedito, during the silent dawn, crawled with his scrap skateboard to the orphanage's storage room and stole enough food to survive for a few days, putting it all in an old, worn-out backpack.
After this, he escaped from the orphanage with relative ease. Benedito then found himself in a vast and dark world and knew no one, could ask for help from anyone, and had no idea what to do.
Benedito wandered for months, alone, suffering from cold, hunger, pain, and anger. One particularly painful night, because he had been beaten up by other beggars, had his junk skateboard stolen, and all the money he had saved stolen, Benedito looked up at the night sky and wondered if there really was a god above these skies. If a god existed, why did he have to suffer so much?
He was not even seven years old yet! What terrible sin had he committed to suffer so much? If this was a trial like the one Job went through, how long would this trial last? Would he still be alive when this trial was over? He had fought so hard to stay alive, and what was the point of it all?
At that moment, Benedito remembered the prophet, Jeremiah. The man was given the gift of God, the gift of prophecy, but in return, he was given the heavy responsibility of prophesying to Judah, so that the people of Judah would repent of their sins.
For 40 years he prophesied, and for 40 years he was ignored. When he saw his homeland being conquered by the Babylonian peoples, Jeremiah was filled with righteous fury, along with his grief, and prayed to the God of heaven for an answer.
And the answer came.
"Lamentations 3:28-29
Sit solitary and be silent; for God has laid it upon him.
Put your mouth in the dust; perhaps there is hope yet."
Quoting that verse, Benedito couldn't help but find the whole situation hilarious. He really wanted to understand what God's will was in making him suffer so much like this, but he couldn't. If even an adult cannot understand God's wishes, how could a child?
But that very night, the answer came from where he least expected it. A Buddhist monk sat down next to Benedito, who was sitting on a sidewalk in Haiti's capital, which was still undergoing reconstruction.
"What shakes you, child?" The monk asked.
Benedito was startled at first, but soon calmed his mind, and was able to see that the strange man in a dress and shaven head had no ill intentions toward him.
"I... I think I want to die." Benedito
"Why do you wish to die, child?" The monk asked gently.
He put his hands together as if praying, with a peaceful expression on his face.
"Living is so difficult and so painful. Why should we live? If there are rich people, is it necessary for all the rest of the world to be poor?" Benedito released the dam of his emotions that he had held back for more than a year, and his tears rolled like a river.
"Life is a gifted child, a gift. And it is not because life is yours, that you have the right to decide how and when to die. Eh Mi Tuo Fu" the monk spoke.
"And whose gift is this gift, this gift? Who gave it to me? Couldn't the person who gave it to me make me suffer less?!" Benedito began to become hysterical, and even if he could, he would certainly be standing at that moment.
"Regardless of who gave the gift of life to you, will you still wish to take revenge, child?" The monk asked earnestly.
"It is obvious!" Benedito said wiping the snot and tears from his eyes with righteous fury.
"Who gave this gift to you were your parents, child. And from what I can see looking at you, despite all the adversity you have gone through and are still going through, they loved you unconditionally." Said the old monk.
"Loved me? THEY LOVED ME?! If they loved me, why the hell would I be in this street alone, hungry, and terrified?! Why would I have been born into this nefarious world, where only those with power have a voice?!"
Despite saying those words, Benedito felt a pain in his heart when he said them. He really didn't blame his parents for his current situation. Benedito was mature enough to know that his father probably died in that plane crash, and his mother must have been killed in that earthquake. He knew he shouldn't resent them, but he had had enough of this life, this world, where interests were more important than human life.
"Do you think they didn't love you because you were born into this world, child?" The monk asked as he fiddled with his japamala.
"Shouldn't I at least have the right to choose whether I wanted to be born?! And since that right was not given to me, shouldn't I at least have the right to end my life?!"
Benedito sounded more like a man who has experienced various vicissitudes of life. He by no means sounded like a child. But that is what the world does to you when you are alone, homeless, and desolate. To adapt to that reality, you have to mature.
"Eh Mi Tuo Fu... how much ignorance, how much sin."
The monk suddenly stood up, causing Benedito to wake up from his earlier angry state finally. He remembered that even if this old, bald, strange, eccentric monk could still beat him up, rob him, or worse, he would have no way to defend himself. Benedito was getting ready to run away, but his thoracic vertebrae started to hurt so much that for a moment he couldn't move. He felt this pain because, after his surgery, he didn't have any post-operative care, he didn't take any medication, and he didn't have anyone's help, and for this reason, the inflammation returned.
"Listen, child. Your parents didn't have a choice either, your grandparents, me, my parents, nobody ever chose whether they wanted to be born or not. But does that make us, victims?" The monk asked.
"Then whose fault is it? God's?" Benedito did not answer but preferred to ask another question.
Perhaps because of the dim lighting of the night, the monk did not see that Benedito began to turn pale from the pain and was sweating cold as his hands and lips trembled.
"No one is guilty, child. Life is like that. Sometimes, even when we choose the best path, we may not receive the rewards we expected."
"Is living always suffering?" Benedito asked in a low voice.
"Living is suffering. I have no memories of suffering before I was born, and I am almost certain that I will not suffer after my death. " The monk replied.
"Then why not simply die?"
"Because even if it is small, simplistic, diminutive, and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, life is still beautiful, captivating, and splendidly precious. Ending your life is a sin not against God, not against men, but against the meaning and importance that is living. Suicide is a sin against yourself, against what you once were, and what you could become. "
After saying these words, the monk disappeared into the twilight of the night, and a short time later, Benedito passed out from the intense pain he felt. When he awoke, he was in a hospital in a neighboring town. The monk, as soon as he left the debate with Benedito, sought help for the boy, who seemed to be suffering more than he was letting on.
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