Courtesy: Medical Miracles, from Readers Digest 1981.
November.
From the frontiers of science and the far horizons of
personal courage, these stories of medical triumphs and miracles will reaffirm
your faith in the awesome powers of the human spirit. Dramatic victories and
human triumphs.
Selected and edited by the editors of Readers Digest
The boy is not very far from us. You can see him clearly through those trees
if you are quiet and look carefully.
Yes, there he is, just beyond the tallest pine. He holds a blade of grass in his hand and his
lips move as he talks to the grass. He
lifts his head now and looks out across the canyon at the mountain on the other
side. Watch him as he rises to his
feet. He is 15 years old and stands
straight and tall. In a moment he will
turn and see us, and his face will be lighted by a smile so radiant you’ll warm
all the way through. This is David, and
there is no boy in the entire world quite like him.
David does not always dream serenely as you see him now. Sometimes he plays tetherball, throwing hard
to wrap the rope all the way around the pole by our basement door. Or he plays tag with his black-and-white dog,
Pepper, who sits up and begs him for treats, sleeps on his bed, and licks his
ears. Every evening David sits at the
table in his bedroom with an open book before him, reading in a low
maumar. His favorite stories are about
King Arthur and his noble knights, about Jason searching for the Golden Fleece,
about the brave dog Buck in Jack London’s Call of the Wild. David stares intently at the pictures,
frowiningslightly with the effort to remember.
The small hairs on the back of his brown hand glow yellow in the light
of the desk lamp, as his fingers slowly trace the printed line across the page.
In our den there is a high-back brown sofa. David has staked a claim to its left
end. There are times when he needs to
withdraw here and close the door on the world.
Alone, he bounces rhythmically on the sofa, his back thumping a spot
where the upholstery has worn thin. At
such times, David enjoys the dark and silence.
He has his own light within him, and he hears his own music. We learned long ago that the rest of us can’t
hear David’s music, nor can we keep time to his beat, for he walks through life
in a special cadence, listening to a different drum.
There are five of us in the family; his father and I and
three sons. In this circle David lives
in his own particular place. Sometime
asked him once about his brothers, and he proudly explained; “Jon is the
biggest boy of our house, Ben is the littlest one, and I…. I’m the middlest boy
of all.”
We five roast wieners and marshmallows over hot coals at the
beach. We climb mountains and sleep in
sleeping bags under big trees. We sail
our boat and hunt for sheltered covers to swim in. And we stay at home to work and study, sweep
floots, and carry trash, rake leaves and water the garden. A perfect, happy life, you say? Well, not all the time. For we have an enemy that hovers menacingly
right at the edge of our family circle.
Our enemy has many faces ad many weapons in its
arsenal. It appears as doctors and
physiologists, teachers and well-meaning friends. It speaks patronizingly in schools offices,
talks in pitying tones in the living rooms of friends, stype balky reports that
stare up from the shiny desktops of scholarly men. The enemy’s purpose is to get David our of
his home into a sort of cage called a “facility for the barely educable.”
The enemy says David is incapable of comprehending ideas, of
solving problems, of learning to swim and to make friends. But the enemy has miscalculated our strength,
underestimated the patience of David’s father, the perseverance of his mother,
the resourcefulness of his brothers.
Above all, it has overlooked the endurance of the boy himself, his zeal
to grow, his fervent longing to reach for stars.
But now the enemy is closing in and its ugly secret weapon
has begun of find the mark. Have we won
battles for 15 years only at to lose the war?
Must we pack up our son and deliver him, struggling, to faceless
strangers carrying keys behind a locked gate?
The secret weapon is a Trojan horse. Our defense is crumbling from within. The
enemy has got through to David and filled him with fear. His brothers, too, are beginning to wonder.
“David can’t play ball forever. Who will
take care of him when he’s grown up?” they asked.
And the enemy pushes me against a wall, a hard, impassable
wall that doesn’t yield to my pounding omelet in my tears.
“What are you? I
cry. “What power has you that you can
overcome love?”
“I am Reality,” says the wall. “You never have seen me, but I have been here
all among.”
“You want David. But you’ll not take my son from me.”
“I come for you, not for David.”
After a while my weeping stopped and I raised my face from
my hands. There was a heavy stillness in
the office where I sat, and the man behind the desk simply stared quietly at
the papers before him.
“Doctor,” I began.
The man looked up.
“Your report has words in it, Dr.Nale, that I can’t accept. You say that David has severe motor and
perceptual disturbance, because of brain damage. You make him sound hopeless, incomplete.”
“Those are words of professionals, Mrs. Barnes, not for
parents. Of course, you don’t see the
same child I see. You never should. I see a patient—a pleasant, inadequate
youngster who needs special help. You
see your son.”
“But, an institution?
Holed up in some dreary dormitory with hundreds of slobbering, defective
people?”
“Mrs. Barenes, why did you bring this boy here for
testing?” Is he happy in his present
circumstances? Are you satisfied with
his school situation?”
I studied the figured pattern on the beige rug. My eyes followed its design from the chair to
the door, then back to the walnut desk.
‘No,” I whispered.
“He’s lonely now at home, and miserable with that educationally
handicapped class in school.”
The doctor took off his glasses and polished them slowly,
attentively, and then he put them on and looked at me hard.
‘The gulf will widen between your son and everyone
else. You’ve given him a good and loving
home for as long as he could cope.
You’ve taught him all you can.
Now he needs special training.
And he needs first to become independent of you.”
“To send him away would him so, as though we didn’t want him
anymore. He’d never understand.”
“To send him away will be harder for you than it will be for
David. Do you really believe that he
needs you now as much as you need him?”
I left the office, that terrible question ringing in my
ears.
One evening, several weeks later, I sat with David in his
room for our regular reading time.
Suddenly the book slipped from his hands to the floor.
“I don’t want to read, Mom.
I hate to read.”
“But these are your books, dear, and the better you get at
reading the more you’ll find you like it.”
“They’re not my books.
You got them. They’re your
books.”
We both just sat there for a while without moving or
speaking. Nothing ever changed in his
room, for David wanted everything jus as it had always been. A tan bedspread with cowboys and covered
wagons. A blue rug. A round hole in the window screen through
which David pushes bits of cheese and lettuce for the mice. A big basket full of blue stones, gray
stones, orange stones, and lucky stones with black stripes. And over all there hangs a boy smell of damp
grass, bubble gum, sweaty socks and rubbery tennis shoes.
My eyes returned to David.
He stared emptily at the floor, his arms hanging limp, his mouth
stack. I felt myself go cold all over as
I saw a person I had never seen before, the bewildered child seen by Dr.
Nale. For how long had I put my vision
of his boy before his own deep need of things I did not even have?
Throughout that night I lay in the purple limbo between
sleeping and walking. Over me towered
that implacable, unforgiving wall.
“You call yourself Reality.
Do you stand like this over my son, covering him with a shadow of fear?”
“Must he go away?
Doesn’t he need me anymore?”
“He needs you in a new way, to find for him the people who
can give him what you cannot give.”
“He will be hurt.”
“That’s true. But
you’ll face his hurt so that he will be able to face his whole life. This will be your gift to the boy.”
A gray and tired morning dragged itself at last through the
window. That was the day we made a
long-distance phone call to the Children’s Village, a private center for the
care and training of brain-injured youngsters.
We were told that in six months there would be a place with them for
David. Since his aptitude test scores
were rather than lower than what generally indicates ability to become
self-sufficient, they accepted him on a trial basis. Whether he could stay the course would depend
on his effort and response. One week
before departure, I told David about the new plans. “Dad and I have decided you’ll go to another
school next week.”
‘What school?”
“It’s called the Village.
It’s up in the Rocky Mountains.
“But I don’t want to go there. I want to stay here.”
“Of course you do.
We’d rather you stay here. But
going to the Village will be better for you.”
‘No, it won’t. I
won’t go.”
Throughout that week David never let go the subject of the
new school.
“Why are you making me go to the Village, Mom?”
“You’ll like it better than the school here. And you’ll learn more.”
‘I’d hate it. I’d
rather dead than go there.”
“You’ll get used to it and them you’ll be happier.”
“I want to drown myself.”
My anxiety grew by the hour.
In this despondent mood, resisting with all his might, how could David
get anything at all from the Village?
Could they possibly reach him? Or
would he withdraw into silent despair, terrified, frozen?
The day came. Bags
were packed. David said nothing on the
way to the airport. At the boarding gate
we all stood and stared at each other.
David’s father and brothers said good-bye, and then David walked with me
up the ramp and into the plane. Through
the window we saw the three of them waving until we took off. When we were airborne, David turned his face
to me and spoke.
“I feel like there’s a dam behind my eyes.”
“A dam?”
“A big wall that’s holding the water back. There’s one behind my eyes. And if I move blink, the dam will break and
make me cry.”
I took his hand and we watched the hills and towns flow past
below.
There’s a winding dirt road that leads into the Children’s
Village. I drove slowly along in our
rented car, past cows and horses, and occasionally a little house, watching for
the turnoff. Finally we pulled up at a
low brick building around which were scattered some cottages that looked like
farms. A stream meandered gently through
a clump of trees. In the distance,
snow-covered mountains peaks encircled the valley.
Entering the brick building, we found ourselves in a dining
room where several children were eating supper.
A tall, lanky young man, wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt, come over
to David and put out his hand.
“You must be David.
My name is Bob. I’m glad to see
you.” They shook hands.
“I’ll bet you’re hungry.
Come on with me while your mother goes down to the office. There’s pie, and ice cream….” And off they went.
In the office, I signed papers. Then the young man named Bob showed me around
the Village. We looked at the greenhouse
where youngsters arrange bulbs in flats, the shop where they mend and refinish
furniture, a kitchen where cooking is practiced, the schoolrooms and residence
cottages.
“Tell me about David,” Bob said. I’m not interested in his I.Q. I want to know the important things. Does he ride a bike? Does he like to play kickball? Has he ever fished a stream for trout?”
Our tour of the premises ended at the teen-age boys’
house. David was waiting for me by the
door. He spoke in a very low voice.
“Mom. I want to go
back home now.”
“I’m sorry, David.
You’ll have to stay here. I have
to go now.” I kissed him. ‘Good-bye, dear. Be a good boy.”
He stood looking after me, Bob’s arm around his shoulder, as
I turned away and walked quickly toward the car. There was a dam behind my eyes.
Back home it seemed strange to be a family of four instead
of five. I found myself making an extra
hamburger my mistake, and setting our five cereal bowls at breakfast. Sometimes I wondered where David’s socks were
when I loaded the washing machine. And
the house sounded oddly silent without the muffled thump of the brown sofa in
the den.
Sometime after my return from the Village, we received a
letter from the social worker. “After a
few difficult days, David began to smile.
Now he is grinning all the time.
This boy surely knows the meaning of work, takes on diligently every
task he is given. We expect a good deal
may be developed in a youngster who shows such cheerfulness and fortitude, and
whose personality is so full of charm and warmth.”
And then came a letter from David himself, written
laboriously in pencil on lined paper:
“Dear Mom and Dad. It is very
hard work here and it is some times fun to.
I fix a chair and it is good. I
do math and plant flowers. Bob took us
camping were we sleep out in the hills far up.
Bob says how I am a fine camper and also the best laundry worker in this
entire place. Sincerely your son David.”
We are proud, my husband and I, of all our sons. The biggest boy of our house is a fine
athlete, the leading trackman in his school.
The littlest boy is a good student, standing at the top of his
class. And the middlest boy of our
house—David—is the very best laundry worker in the village where he lives.
As I look out into our garden, it seems that any moment now
we will see David standing in the grass among those pine trees. No, we can’t see him right now, but he’s not,
after all, so very far away. Listen
hard, David, listen to your drum. Climb,
climb to the very top of your own mountain—and my soul will rejoice and be
glad.
