Every day I realize a little more how little I understand about life. This latest realization began about a month ago when I went to visit a friend in the hospital who had just had her first child. I remember sitting in a rocking chair in her room and holding this tiny little baby, just a few hours old, and thinking what a miracle it was. He wrapped his tiny hand around my finger, he tried to focus his eyes on my face, and he let out lusty cries. And it was all amazing.
Then four weeks later I was standing in another hospital, looking down at another baby. A baby whose tiny body should have still been sheltered inside his mother. A tube down his throat breathed for him, and wires snaked out from his body in such a manner that his own mother couldn’t even hold him, but could only stroke his cheek. His body, no bigger than my hand, shuddered with silent cries that he couldn’t force around the respirator. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that his tiny brain was bleeding and his heart was damaged. As I look at his mother, I know that she hasn’t slept in days, and the fear is evident in her eyes. Just 18 months ago her body brought forth another child, a little girl who only lived a few hours. I can see the pleading in her face: Please don’t let this happen again.
And finally, just today, I found out that a woman from my church, only 18-weeks pregnant, is in the hospital, fighting desperately to keep her child from a world where he can’t survive.
And I just can’t understand why.