By Andy Matarrese
It was difficult, at times, for Molly Hightower to stay hopeful in the orphanage where she volunteered. Difficult to ignore the sadness she felt when she saw the burns on one of the children's legs, perhaps resulting from a misguided attempt to burn the seizures out of her.
Difficult to keep her head up when another boy would have another epileptic fit, or when another - found burning in a garbage pile and missing half his fingers and scalp - would wander by asking for a treat.
Difficult to deal with all the funerals and mass graves, the two to three children who would die daily at the hospital where she sometimes worked.
"There's always sadness to focus on if you choose to," Molly wrote in her blog. "You gotta focus on the good."
Those close to Molly have been trying to do that since receiving news of her death last Friday morning.
Friends and family gathered for a funeral Mass in Lakewood, Wash., yesterday to celebrate the life of the 2009 University of Portland graduate, who was killed in the earthquake that struck Haiti last week.
Molly's parents were concerned for her safety when she decided to go to Haiti to volunteer with Friends of the Orphans. After researching the program, they decided to let her go, her father Mike Hightower said.
She was set on it, he said, and he didn't think there was much stopping her anyway.
"She was doing what she wanted to do," he said. "We didn't disagree with her."
Years earlier, her uncle went to Haiti as well, and her aunt worked with the program in Honduras.
"She really just felt that the Lord was calling her to help those kids," her older sister, Jordan Hightower, said.
Molly, 22, helped with physical therapy for children, their development stunted by malnutrition, meningitis or other diseases. She would massage their damaged muscles and help them with exercises. She also assisted with physical therapy in the pool, helping children who would otherwise be too immobile to walk, move around and play.
She majored in psychology, sociology and French, and she could see what the island country's crippling poverty was doing to the development of the children.
"It's difficult to determine when children are just physically handicapped," she wrote in her blog, where she chronicled her time in Haiti. "So many will make eye contact with you, acknowledge your words and smile when you touch them but cannot communicate in other ways."
Other times, she'd tend to orphaned or abandoned babies waiting between the urgent care and recovery areas of the hospital.
"I spend almost every day with the abandoned babies in the hospital, and it's difficult to comprehend why and who would ever give them up," she wrote.
Molly even substituted for an English class. The children performed Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" for their end of the term party.
By winter, the job began to wear on her.
"She went to funerals constantly," her father said.
In December, when she came home to Port Orchard, Wash., Mike said she expressed some doubts about returning.
Jordan said it was hard for Molly to see all the orphans she worked with, especially coming from a loving, supportive family that had been there for her.
"A lot of those kids never felt love," Jordan said. "That really weighed down on her soul, but the children brought her up."
Molly decided to return to Haiti early so she could be with the children for Christmas.
"I think that tells a lot about her commitment," said UP French professor Trudie Booth, who was close to Molly.
Booth said the chance to volunteer in Haiti was a dream come true for Molly.
"Helping others in need was always the utmost thing on her mind," she said.
Carrie Young, who graduated in 2008, studied abroad in Paris with Molly in 2007. At Molly's memorial Mass at UP last Saturday, Carrie told a story about the time Molly's sandal broke as they were walking through Paris.
She didn't know how she could fix it, so she borrowed a friend's sock and walked through the streets of fashionable Paris with a sock and sandal, without giving a second thought to all the funny looks she got.
"Molly was a selfless person who didn't want to slow or ruin that night in Paris," Carrie said.
When she saw how many children in Haiti didn't have shoes themselves, she organized a shoe drive for the children at the orphanage. Her father said the drive had gathered over 400 pairs. The shoes were about to be sent to Miami and on to Haiti when the earthquake struck, derailing the effort.
Her father's company, Service Steel Aerospace, will continue the shoe drive and start sending collected shoes once more services are set up in Haiti.
Mike said it's what Molly would have wanted.
The last post on Molly's blog was written by her family.
"In Haiti she found unconditional love, simple pleasures, smiles all day and a second family," they wrote. "And it made her smile."
- Emily Sitton contributed to this article
