Through tears, a vision of healing

Helen Omeje has chosen her daughter's outfit for the day: black sweats and a black-and-white striped shirt. They're secondhand; donated, just like the rest of the clothes - indeed, everything - in their apartment. But Helen wants to make sure that Chi Chi looks like a teenager, not like some middle-aged lady.

Chi Chi can't pick out her own clothes because she can't see. Four years ago, at age 14, she fell face first into a cooking fire in her Nigerian village as she stirred a pot of stew. She had suffered an epileptic seizure and was burned beyond recognition, her pretty face, scalp, chest, and arms melted away. She lost an ear, her eyesight, most of her hair, much of her right hand.

With burns that severe in a small hospital in rural Nigeria, Chi Chi was not supposed to live. But she would not die. And that is due in no small part to the strong will of her mother.

Little did Helen know that, when she left her house on July 29, 2004, she would not return home for years. She was just going to help out an older daughter with her newborn son. Two weeks later, her husband came with the news of Chi Chi's accident.

Helen rushed straight to the clinic where Chi Chi had been taken. When she first saw her daughter, she wept. "I cried for a month," she says. "I couldn't eat. I began feeling weak and dizzy."

Once over her shock, Helen pulled herself together. For a year and one month, she stayed with Chi Chi in the hospital, sleeping in the bed next to her. Chi Chi was wrapped in bandages that had to be changed daily, and it hurt like crazy.

"She'd cry," says Helen. So before the nurses came each day, Helen would wet the bandages to loosen them up, and slowly, ever-so-gently remove them.

Deeply religious, Helen prayed for some deliverance. "I couldn't handle this, and we couldn't afford the hospital bills," she recalls. Her husband is a schoolteacher who makes $500 a year and is paid only sporadically because of the woeful state of Nigeria's economy. Before the accident, Helen would supplement the family income by going into the forests and collecting palm oil to sell.

God, says Helen, answered her prayers. One day, a Nigerian-born American citizen happened upon the mother and daughter in the hospital and leaped into action. Jacinta Aniagolu-Johnson, who lives in Maryland, got the Boston Shriners Hospital for Children to take Chi Chi's case, and arranged for the national Children's Burn Foundation to pay rent and utilities on a Milton apartment.

Helen and Chi Chi, who had never traveled beyond their own village, arrived here in September 2005. At Shriners, Chi Chi has undergone several facial surgeries and grafts. More than anything, she wants to regain her eyesight, and though many doctors are pessimistic, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Cleveland believes it can help. But doctors there, who said they'd operate last fall, still haven't set a date, and Chi Chi cannot have more facial surgery - she needs several more operations - until her eyes are repaired, if possible.

So mother and daughter sit and wait, depending on the kindness of strangers and new friends. The Milton school system sends a tutor, and there are Braille lessons and a mobility teacher to help Chi Chi, now 18, live with her disabilities. The little English they spoke when they arrived has improved greatly, and they take the Ride, a van for the disabled run by the MBTA, to Chi Chi's medical appointments.

Arthritis has developed in Helen's knee, and she has been told she needs a replacement. But there's no money and beyond that, who would take care of Chi Chi?

Helen rarely leaves her daughter's side. She wakes her in the morning, the two pray together, thanking God for "our health and his guidance." She sweeps the house, makes breakfast, steers Chi Chi into the bathroom for her shower, puts toothpaste on her brush, helps her dress. Because Chi Chi's lips were burned off, Helen often wipes the saliva from her daughter's mouth and helps feed her. After dinner, the two watch television (Chi Chi listens), read the Bible, pray, and go to sleep.

Every day - even the coldest of the Boston winter, where they experienced their first snowfall - Helen takes Chi Chi by the hand and guides her down to Mattapan Square, or up to Milton High School, or to a park, where she pushes Chi Chi on a swing. They try to walk for 90 minutes since Chi Chi is now sedentary and has gained weight.

Sundays are spent at their evangelical church in Dorchester, where those who don't have much still find ways to help.

Helen is grateful to everyone and continuously "God blesses" them all. But there is something even the most generous can't give her: the rest of her family.

Back home, she has seven other children. Her youngest was 11 when his mother left; he's 15 now. A granddaughter named Precious was born last August. Another daughter got married in December.

"I don't sleep," says Helen, 50. "I'm thinking, how are they doing? Who will cook for them? Who will help with the baby? My son calls and says, 'Mommy, when are you coming home? Mommy, I miss you.' I would like to see my children because I can't endure without them."

But she can't go home for many reasons. Money, for one. Chi Chi, for another. Then there's immigration. The two are on an emergency medical visa that they must renew, at $200, every six months. Helen would love green cards for herself and Chi Chi but can't hire a lawyer to help obtain them. Without a card, even if Helen had the money to fly home for a visit - and someone to care for Chi Chi in her absence - she could not reenter this country.

The best Helen can do is use the $2 phone cards, for 15 minutes, that she buys in Mattapan for her weekly calls home.

Around New Year's, she received a package from Nigeria. It was a tape of her daughter's wedding and related festivities in their village. It's more than two hours long, but Helen has watched it so many times she can narrate it by heart. Another package of photos arrived recently: Precious, now 8 months old, and other family members. Helen keeps them wrapped in plastic.

On a recent day, she closely studies a photo of her family: grandchildren, children and her husband. But there are a couple of people missing. Chi Chi, the second youngest. And Helen, the heart of her large family. She dabs at her eyes, but then says that whenever she gets discouraged, she thinks of Job and his trials.

In Nigeria, they celebrate Mother's Day in March. Here, it's today. Chi Chi and Helen will go to church, then walk for 90 minutes, mother holding daughter's hand, daughter leaning into mother.

"God," says Helen, "sends children as a blessing to mothers."

Columnist Bella English of Milton can be reached at english@globe.com.