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Like painting a masterpiece
was the work surrounding our family. One segment of the canvas was
completed but another concentration must go to an unfinished area. Rhonda
picked up each color of that work and proceeded. Her still body she had to
push while her stiff hands and legs seemed to have a will of their own.
“Missy!” She now spoke to
one of her cousins who was visiting us for the day. “You go get in the
shower. Look at you! Shoeey! You have a definite odor, too. I’ll put your
clothes in the washer while you are showering. By the time you finish they
will be in the dryer. Put my robe on when you get out.”
Something about Rhonda’s
definite orders didn’t leave an opportunity for the little girl to rebel.
Rhonda’s speech was not clear but it was strange how well the children
could understand her when often, adults could not.
“Listen, little girl,” she
was still chastising her charge as she dried the little one’s hair with a
towel. “If I can drag this body into the shower, there is absolutely no
reason you cannot do the same. There’s nothing to make you feel any better
than being clean.”
The little girl smiled in
an endearing way up toward Rhonda.
More than one time in my
life did I have to return to the words of the mother I met in Dallas who
was raising her blind, cerebral palsied daughter.
“I cannot allow myself the
self indulgence of grief. I must remain strong for Kathleen’s sake.” The
courage and bravery of such a person who had no feeble attitude about her
in any way remained a motto for my own position.
For an instant my heart and
emotions wanted to crumble allowing my body to follow in like manner when
I watched the rigid, spastic arms and hands of my daughter while she had
to struggle to perform even the most simple of tasks.
“What a fool I am not to
appreciate the beauty of seeing her care for this motherless child before
her.” And then, steeling myself to ignore the impossible and revel in the
potential I shook myself away from hopelessness. |
