A Precious Gift

Yesterday, after a busy morning of errand running and a chaotic but heartwarming trip to Diminutive One's classroom for a Halloween poetry reading, (he is a born poet, if I do say so myself) I stopped at a small corner store where a local farmer sells produce.

Because Halloween is still very warm here in the South, we usually don't carve our pumpkins as early as people in colder climates might, but we normally don't wait until Halloween night either.

But it's been an unusually busy week, and pumpkins have not been high on my list of priorites. And truly, pumpkin carving is not quite as important to my kids as it once was.

I chose my pumpkins and a container of ripe, red, sun warmed tomatoes and went into the little building to pay for them.

Inside was Farmer John, a big beefy man who reminded me of home, and two older women. One of the women was curled up in a big overstuffed chair, giving a baby a bottle. The baby was wrapped in a blanket, which I thought was strange, because although the day had started out chilly, by noon it was probably close to 75 degrees.

There was a sheaf of thick blonde hair showing out of the top of the blanket and the sounds of a hungry baby enjoying it's bottle could be heard above the low sussurus of conversation.

"Can I peek at your baby?" I asked. Though the longing to have more of my own has faded away, I still can't resist a baby.

Something that I couldn't identify flickered briefly across the woman's face, but it was quickly replaced by a smile.

"Of course!" she said brightly.

I went over the look at the baby, a girl, and saw instantly that something was wrong. The baby, who appeared to be 6 or 7 months old, had a pififully misshapen head. It was terribly flat in back, but rose to a peak almost directly above the child's eyebrows. Her ears were very low slung and her facial features appeared disproportionately large.

She suckled vigorously, but her sky blue eyes were vacant and unfocused. I wasn't sure if it was milk bliss that caused her dreamy appearance, or if she was neurologically impaired.

It took me a couple seconds to realize that she was probably suffering from Microcephaly. Babies with Microcephaly typically look like this.

I smiled, though it broke my heart. Poor little sweat pea.

Her grandmother gazed at her lovingly. "She is so content when she's eating." she said softly.

"Oh, they all are, aren't they?" I said, striving for a casual tone. "Gosh, I miss my boys being that size. They're almost as big as me these days."

"Don't I know it!" she said. "All mine are grown and gone, and now I have to spoil (she pronoucned it spole) all my grandbabies."

I went back to the counter to pay.

"Do you keep her full time?" I asked.

The woman's eyes never left the baby as she spoke to me.

"Oh yes." she said. "We take turns so she won't have to go to daycare. This is our fourth grandbaby. She is a precious gift to us."

She looked at me then and I thought I saw a challenge in her eyes. But she would get no debate from me.

I met her gaze squarely and said, "Your children are so lucky to have you. And she is absolutely beautiful."

Her face softened a little bit, and she thanked me.

I paid for my purchases and left.

As I climbed back into the van, I realized that there were tears in my eyes, which is unusual for me. I'm not a crier.

But it wasn't sadness for the baby, or pity for those burdened with her care. It was the woman, with her fierce love and her refusal to see the tiny blonde baby girl as anything but perfect that had touched me so deeply.

I thought back to the days when Pre-Pubescent One was a baby. When he was 5 months old, a gal my age, whose baby boy was only three weeks older then mine, moved into the unit next door to ours. I had been terribly lonely up to that point, so I was immensely grateful for her company. We became fast friends. She introduced me to another woman with a baby boy roughly the same age as ours.

Our boys looked and acted like any healthy infant should. Zach, the third woman's baby, did not. His hair was flaxen blonde and his eyes were the purest cornflower blue. From the eyebrows down he was the most beautiful child I've ever laid eyes on, and when he had a hat on (which was most of the time) he looked like any other baby.

But if one looked a little closer, they would see that his beautiful blue eyes were curiously empty and that his hat seemed unusually large for his little body. That hat was filled with his head, which was hugely swollen and covered with a lacy blue network of delicate veins. He had been born with Hydrocephalus.

Zach, like my son, was born when prenatal diagnostics were becoming widely available, but somehow his condition was not detected until birth. The damage to his poor little brain was catastrophic.

It was difficult at such a young age to determine how much awareness he really had, but the doctors felt that beyond feeling basic physical sensations such as cold, wet, hunger, and pain, he had very little sentience. He was completely blind, and would never walk or talk or have control of his bladder and bowels.

I felt tremendously sad looking at him, as I contemplated the hopelessness and pointlessness of his existence.

His mother would bring him to our little gal pal group and set his seat among the rest of the babies. As they grew and became mobile, they struck out eagerly to explore their surroundings. Zach, of course, remained confined to his seat.

But curiously, they would return every now and then to bring him a toy or offer him a biscuit or a little pat. Sometimes, they would babble to him inquiringly, in sweet nonsensical baby jargon. Occasionally, one of them would bestow a gentle kiss upon his distorted brow.

They were taking care of him.

They were learning compassion and empathy and acceptance from a child who was scarcely conscious. And I realized then that his existence was not as pointless as I had naively supposed.

So he had taught me something as well, and I suspected that he would teach a great deal more before his time on this earth came to an end. We have lost touch with he and his mother through a series of moves, but I think about them often.

There have been many great advances in prenatal testing. We now have the ability to identify certain genetic markers. We now know the importance of good nutrition and the dangers of smoking, drinking and drug use while pregnant are well documented. And then there is the freedom to abort, of which, by the way, I am a strong proponent. As a result, such grave disorders are increasingly rare. You don't often see babies like Zach.

That seems like a terriffic boon for mankind. But is it really?

I certainly don't wish for more babies to be afflicted by such profound disabilities. But I sometimes wonder if we aren't biologically engineering ourselves right out of the ability to empathize, nurture, and truly appreciate the manner in which every living thing brings something of value with them into the world. I wonder if we are losing our ability to cultivate knowledge and gain compassion from those different from ourselves.

A Gift, she said. A Precious Gift.

Yes. Absolutely.



(Portions of this post excerpted from "Rethinking the Right to Die"; originally posted 05/06)