We took trips to doctors’ offices. There were referrals to new doctors, which led to further referrals to still more doctors with strange titles who lived far away. One day, as we sat in one of those doctor’s offices, our hearts pounding, a tired Sarah fussing and crying, the doctor explained to us in a patronizing tone and in words of twenty syllables, that Sarah was retarded, “microcephalic.”
“Micro—what?” We made the five-hour trip home in stunned silence, but in my head, the roar of “NO!” echoed over and over again.
Every day for the next week, I went to the library and read all that I could find on microcephalia. Something about this diagnosis was not right. What they described was not my Sarah. After so much study, it was I who discovered what was really wrong with my heart-child. I told the doctors that Sarah was not microcephalic, but had a chromosome disorder. They didn’t believe me. They said grief did terrible things to a mother’s mind. But I had found a new courage inside, and I finally persuaded a doctor, a woman doctor who was also a mother, to do the simple test to find out. We took blood and we counted the chromosomes. Sarah had one too many.
But being right brought no reward, only a new kind of nothingness. My child might never walk, might never talk. I was told, with compassion, just to love her and enjoy her as much as possible.
For the following week or two, I was numb. I ate, I slept, I packed lunches for my school-aged children. I went to work, leaving Sarah with a sitter. I drove to a nearby lake and stared at its vastness. I tried to feel grief, or anger, or anything at all. I looked around me hoping to see something black or white or even gray, but there was no color in my life, only a gaping abyss into which my soul had fallen. I wanted my friends and family to take all of their well-intentioned words and hang them on the pieces of someone else’s broken heart.
Even in my shattered condition, I knew I was a good mother—but was I the kind of mother this little girl needed? I didn’t know how to be a retarded girl’s mother. But I loved Sarah; I loved her in a way that was beyond my understanding and I wanted to keep loving her for as long as she lived. So I decided that I would love her and love her well. It was then that my courage surfaced again, and I found a new word to define it. Yes! I told myself. Yes, she will walk. Yes, she will talk. Yes, she will, she will, she will.
That spring Sarah and I went to the library every day to learn together. I worked her muscles and taught her limbs to move correctly. We licked spoonfuls of peanut butter to make her tongue move more accurately. We played with a flashlight in a dark room to make her eyes focus properly. Minor achievements became major miracles. My courage was contagious: Daddy did the physical therapy; big brother liked to eat peanut butter; big sister dug out her old Dr. Seuss books and read aloud to Sarah. I claimed “dark-room duty.” It was my place of refuge. It was my place of prayer. Sarah stared at the flashlight in silence, and there was peace in the silence.
See Sarah. See Sarah run. Run, Sarah, run!
Hear Sarah laugh and sing the ABC song. Sing, Sarah, sing!
Listen, Sarah, listen. Your teacher is calling your name.
She is saying, “Welcome to kindergarten, Sarah.”
It was the first day of school, and as I stood at the door of the classroom, I heard Sarah’s small voice say, “Don’t cry, Mama. Sarah ‘yub’ you.” She thought my tears were saying, “No.” She couldn’t know how much they were saying, “Yes!”
Yes to new dreams and hopes, to new possibilities and simple pleasures. She didn’t know that as she hugged me and said good-bye, I said hello.
Kathi Rose
Pennies from Heaven
I met a man who picks up pennies he finds on the ground because he says they’re government property.
I pick them up because I see them as signs from angels to let us know they’re around.
Carmen Rutlen
Years ago, when our finances were less than ideal, I took a job vacuuming the halls and carpeted stairwells of our run-down condominium building. Work is work and, I told myself, it was honest work. But it wasn’t what I’d imagined myself doing for employment and it dented my pride.
It was certainly difficult work; the portable vacuum weighed twenty pounds and the condominium hallways were mostly stairs, twelve staircases in all, three flights up each. Six staircases a day was all I could manage. Stirred up dirt and dust clung to my skin, sweaty from hauling the vacuum up and down the airless staircases, and there were days when self-pity and wounded pride made the vacuum weigh even more.
On a day that had been particularly hard, when my pride tweaked with every cigarette butt and piece of trash I picked up, I hauled my portable vacuum up the stairs and asked God, in a tone more rueful than meditative, to give me something, anything, to perk up my sagging spirit.
On the third floor, nearly hidden in the crevice where the frayed carpet met the wall, glinted a shiny penny. “This?” I asked God. “This is what you give me?” I sighed, but I pocketed the penny and didn’t give it much thought beyond that.
Curiously, pennies began to turn up each time I vacuumed the halls. They hadn’t been there in the months before as I’d vacuumed up dried-up leaves and crumpled gum wrappers. But now, each time, there was a penny. One penny only. It became a game to me, wondering where and when the lone penny would turn up. Always, before the job was completed, there would be that one coin, as if it were waiting for me. I started to say a thankyou to God each time I retrieved the penny and pocketed it, and began to think of these small, found treasures as my pennies from heaven.
I didn’t tell anyone. There are pennies everywhere, right? Considered outdated, what is a penny but a useless coin that doesn’t buy anything in this expensive age? The condo-cleaning job was the least of the hardships visited upon me in the last few years, and pennies weighed against family misfortunes and ill luck seemed small change, indeed.
Still, it gave me a jolt of renewed hope each time I spotted one—and more often than not, that hope alone was enough for me.
Finances improved and we moved, and my two children blossomed in their new neighborhood. Life uninterrupted by adversity was welcome, if surprising. Occasionally I picked up a penny when I found it, thanking God in what had now become a knee-jerk response.
When I found myself pregnant with twins, I viewed it as the motherlode of rewards for having survived the previous years so well. When the ultrasound revealed them to be healthy baby girls, I named them Anne and Grace. I grew so huge over the next eight months, there was no more bending down to pick up anything, much less a mere penny.
When I was in early labor, the final ultrasound revealed their perfect feet, the sweet curve of their rumps, and the delicate rope of their spines. And then the flat silent discs that proved to be their unbeating hearts. They had died the night before. In the following hours before they were delivered I knew that my thinking of them as a reward had been only a cosmic joke of some sort, or more likely the imagination of a childish heart.
For months afterwards, the only prayers I offered up were enraged shouts at the kitchen ceiling, and finally even those ceased. What good is yelling at a God who doesn’t care, doesn’t hear, or more likely, doesn’t exist.
The numbness that replaced the anger made it nearly impossible to navigate my daily life. I forgot whatever it was I had once cared for and even tried to make lists of what I loved. I’d loved my other children, hadn’t I? Only now their demands and need for comfort seemed overwhelmingly large. I tried smaller lists. Hadn’t I liked old books, flea markets, stolen moments with my husband? Didn’t I once enjoy lunches out with friends? My funny little dog? It didn’t help, and I forgot the lists, forgot my own name once when it was asked, and forgot as well any reason to continue living.
One day, while waiting for my son’s karate class to end, I heard a mother call to her daughter. “Annie,” she said, and a chubby blonde toddler came tumbling into her arms. I fled for the hallway, and as I tried to gain control of myself, I happened to glance down. There on
the carpet was a penny. I just stared at it. A penny?
I picked it up.
After that, pennies began to turn up everywhere. Almost every day but always just one. In odd places. In the rooms of my house where I had just walked before, a penny would suddenly be shining up from the middle of the room. In the waiting room of a doctor’s office, outside my mailbox, in the school parking lot as I stepped out of my car. I began to pocket them again, slowly, numbly, and I began again to thank God each time.
My small frequent thanks to God made me question what I was thanking him for—my nine-year-old son slipping his hand into mine, a funny note from my daughter, evening walks with my husband, soup from a friend, even a kind smile from a grocery clerk. I looked up one morning and noticed the blue of the springtime sky. I noticed the rich taste of my morning cup of coffee. I began to be grateful just to be alive.
It occurred to me that maybe God doesn’t always choose to speak in dramatic ways; maybe a burning bush isn’t his calling card to everyone.
Just maybe, for some, a single penny gleaming in an unexpected place is his touch of grace, his gift of hope. And sometimes that hope is just enough.
Susan Clarkson Moorhead
Shoulder to Shoulder
A faint light poked its nose under the family-room door in the hallway of the mission home. Was it Sara? Was she still awake?
Tugging the lightweight blanket from the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders, I tiptoed from my room. Sara huddled beneath a pilled blue blanket on the couch, staring vacantly at pictures flashing on the silent television screen. A scattering of unopened magazines cluttered the floor beneath the dimmed lamp. I sighed.
Great. Just what I needed at a time like this. Another child to see to, another child to parent. Well, I’d been at it for years. At least it was a role I was accustomed to.
“Sara, we’ve had a big day. You really should try to get some sleep,” I urged in a whisper across the room.
She sat up and rearranged her covers. “I know I should. But I can’t.”
Sara, long and lean, was beginning to show the week’s strain. Eyes darkened to indigo, puffy from crying. Translucent skin stretched taut across flawless cheekbones.
Too thin! Too thin! My mind screeched the warning. I’d tried to coax her to eat. She had no appetite. But then, neither did I.
We had shared a long week, bedside in the trauma unit. My son Kyle, engaged to Sara, only recently moved to California to serve a temporary stint as a missionary. Instead, he was in critical condition and comatose, the result of a hit-and-run accident.
Taking a seat at the other end of the long couch, I curled icy toes and tucked my cold feet between the cushions before layering my blanket over hers. A companionable silence settled between us. I marveled at how deeply I had come to know this beautiful young lady over the past week.
What would I do without her? How would I manage when she flew back to Colorado in the morning?
On the other hand, I also recognized that, at twenty-two, she was definitely a member of the McDonald’s generation— expecting life to be neatly packaged in a Happy Meal. Made to order. Served on a platter. “Immediately, if not sooner,” as my daddy would have quipped.
Nothing about Kyle’s situation appeared to be that simple. This was not a quick fix, jiffy meal. Did Sara truly understand the gravity of all this? Whether Kyle lived or died, things would never be the same again—for any of us.
I worried that Sara was simply too naive, too young, too inexperienced to recognize the far-reaching ramifications of Kyle’s situation. What was best for her? For Kyle?
Was this the time to shatter her confidence, destroy her illusions, slap her with reality? A part of me felt that my own fragile faith depended upon the unwavering strength of hers.
Yet, at forty-seven, my jaded rung was higher on the ladder. I had dealt with loss—up close and personal. I had buried numerous friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, four sets of grandparents and, most recently, my own daddy. I was on a first-name basis with death.
And things worse than death. I had witnessed life with the wrappings torn away and knew there wasn’t always a prize inside. Glancing over at Kyle’s fiancée, I saw fresh tears pooling.
“Sara?”
“Oh, Carol, I don’t want to leave tomorrow.”
“I know, Sweetie. But the doctor said Kyle is stable. And this could go on for a long time yet. You need to finish your last semester of college. You and Kyle have a master plan, remember?”
“Y-yes.”
“The best thing you can do right now is carry it out. For yourself and for Kyle. For you and Kyle as a couple.”
“But it’s so hard to leave.” Sara pulled a tissue from the box on the side table.
“I know.”
“I finally found the only person that I love enough to marry. He’s my best friend. We talk about everything. I can’t lose him now. I just can’t!” Her shoulders shook beneath the thin blanket. “I love him so much.”
“Yes, I know you do.” I gathered her in my arms. “And he loves you, too.”
“It would be so much easier if he were aware. If he could know and remember that I was here.”
“Somehow, deep inside, I believe he does, Sara. I— well—I feel linked to him,” I revealed. “I send thought messages, and I think he receives them. Does that sound crazy to you?”
Sara listened intently with her seeing heart while I confided the sweet, sacred communion I had been sharing with Kyle. “We communicate, Sara. We really do.”
“I believe you.” She dabbed at her eyes. “It’s your own personal miracle. And I’m not surprised. I’ve always known that you and Kyle share something special.” She smiled.
“You should hear him talk about you, Carol. ‘My mom’ this, and ‘my mom’ that. He loves and admires you a lot.
That’s one of the things that attracted me to Kyle. His open respect for you and his dad.” Sara leaned her head on my shoulder.
And I held her, a fragile-strong woman-child. The one that Kyle had chosen above all others. Now I was seeing— under the worst circumstances—what he could have only glimpsed under the best. She had eased her way into my heart. I was beginning to love her, too.
No matter what the future held, she would always be part mine. No matter what.
Breathing in the flowered scent of her freshly shampooed hair, I smiled. There would never be mother-in-law problems between us. After weathering this, anything else would be trivial in comparison, even petty.
Look at us now. We were facing the unthinkable together. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm in arm. Hand in hand. I kissed the top of her head, drew her closer, sighed and smiled.
Just what I needed. Another child to love.
Carol McAdoo Rehme
Bound by Love
When my son was only five months old, he had to have major surgery on his head. My husband, Chris, and I were shocked and devastated. Cole’s skull had fused together prematurely; he had no “soft spot.” No one knows why this happens to some babies. The only remedy is surgery.
How could this have happened to my baby? What did I do wrong? I had been so careful during my pregnancy, eating well and refusing caffeine. No matter how many doctors explained to me that the condition was not my fault, I felt responsible.
The surgery and the ensuing five days at the hospital were the scariest, darkest, most exhausting days of our lives. Cole lay in his tiny hospital bed, IVs poking from his perfect little body. My faith faltered with his every breath. If not for the kindness and sensitivity of people—family, friends and hospital staff—I do not know how we could have made it through.
Even Cole tried to help. When Cole’s head swelled so badly that his eyes fused shut and his eyelashes disappeared, I sang to him, my eyes never leaving his face. I was amazed to see him force a weak smile for me. To this day, I’m convinced he was trying to make me feel better.
After Cole’s surgery, his head was swollen and bruised, and he had a dramat
ic zigzag scar from one ear to the other. I was hesitant to go out in public with my sweet boy. I felt defensive and protective, as if I might snap if anyone asked me what was wrong with my baby.
A few days after coming home from the hospital, Cole and I ventured out to buy some groceries. Still on pain medication, Cole was unhappy and cranky. On the way home, I noticed the gas tank indicator was flashing red for empty, so I stopped for some gas. Cole whined as I tried to get the keys out of the ignition. I needed the keys to open the gas tank, and for some reason I could not manage this simple maneuver. For some minutes, I tried pulling and tugging, until finally I feared I might break the key. Trying to compose myself, I reached for Cole and headed for the pay phone. Chris was not home. My heart raced. Cole began crying, and tears welled up in my own eyes.
I found my AAA card and called for help. This, after all, qualified as an emergency. Minutes later, the AAA truck pulled up, and a burly man stepped down and walked toward our car. His eyes immediately focused on Cole’s head, the scar fresh and frightening. “You poor fellow,” he said, “what have you been through?”
His kind words directed toward Cole opened a flood of tears in me. I began to sob. The stranger, whose name tag read Ron, simply placed a hand on my shoulder until I calmed down. Then he said to me, “As parents we go through some very hard things. There’s nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. I have two kids of my own, and I know all about it. Even an earache can seem like the end of the world. The thing is—we simply get through it.” He reached for his wallet and pulled out numerous pictures of his son and daughter.
Cole and I sat with Ron as he talked about each picture. By the time he finished, Cole was sitting contently on my lap, and I felt a smile, the first in weeks, spontaneously come to my lips.