Saying lots with no words

In the midst of my travels during this sometimes hectic day, I managed to drop in for a very short visit with a young mother and her child.

Isabelle is a miracle child, born to parents who thought that they could not conceive, but who were granted the gift of this little life shortly after the death of one of their parents. For her part, Isabelle turned out to be extremely premature in her gestation, and as a result has had to live with a compromised lung capacity and many other complicating realities.

To watch her mother interact with her, an outsider knows immediately that there is a very special bond that has been created between these two, and I dare say the same is true of the relationship she shares with her father and her little brother (who as far as I am aware does not face these medical challenges).

Isabelle has visited so often at places like the Hospital for Sick Children, that the doctors there know her by name and recognize her each time she must darken their doors. They have a wonderful way of putting moms and dads at ease (as much as that is possible when a child is sick), and a way of understanding the dynamics of a family in crisis.

But today we were far away from Sick Kids. Instead we were in a pediatric hospital room, keeping watch over a very sick little girl who has suffered much, but who still maintains a smile and a cheery disposition (this is her normal). This is a little one who plays with her little brother, and allows him to tenderly reach out to her when she is in need, who waits for him to bid her good night every night so that she can sleep in relative peace.

This is a young girl who was born from much love, and who has spent her entire life loving, with few words if any, dealing daily with the struggles of existence, all the while asking for nothing more than to be a child, to have her moment in the sun, to enjoy a moment of play with her brother or with a friend, and to know that she is deeply loved.

Would that these significant lessons could be learned by some who have chosen to be blinded by other not-so-important realities. What lessons we can learn from children!