I want to tell you everything that a nineteen-year-old and a newborn baby taught me about love.

This is not a traditional love story.

I was in the U.S. for a brief visit to my hometown when I first heard. A children’s home we know in our area had been asked to take in a sick baby that was abandoned at the hospital. This is not an uncommon scenario. This home specializes in taking in children who have HIV/AIDS, so when the phone call came that a sick baby had been abandoned at the hospital shortly after birth, they went to the hospital to pick her up.

Sick, they were told. Probably HIV. This children’s home is specifically listed in the social work contact sheet as one that specializes in taking in children with this illness. In Guatemala, a children’s home must stay within their specialization or else risk losing accreditation. So, it must be HIV, they thought. Naturally.

They arrived at the hospital and were brought to the child.

Not HIV.

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