The Boy Who Lived

No, it's not about Harry Potter.

It's about today. Nine years ago right now, Christmas was the last thing on my mind. Nine years ago right now I was sitting in a very hard chair, leaning against a glass box, and whispering please to my brand-new baby boy, telling him to breathe. Just breathe one more time honey, and Mummy will be happy. One more second together with him, was all I wanted in the world.

He gave me that second, again and again, in spite of everything the doctors told us. If you're familiar with Apgar scores in which a newborn's condition is scored between 0 (stillborn) and 10, our son's was recorded as "1". The priest came within the first hour, and squeezed my hand while he prayed. We only spent a week in the NICU, but to me it felt like years.

You know how memories are: some are so sharp and clear that you can remember what you were wearing, the smell of the room, the way the light fell across everything in that moment. That's how clearly I can remember the doctor saying goodbye to us as he let our son come home for Christmas, telling us over and over again the odds our son had overcome:

"It's as if he'd been held against a wall for a firing squad, who stood at point-blank range and reloaded, and somehow every one of them missed." He shook his head and called him a "true Christmas miracle", this boy who hadn't had a chance: the doctor had pulled a blank death certificate from his files after seeing him off to the NICU. He'd thought it was only a matter of time.

Nine years of time, today. He still doesn't know why I cry every time I sing Happy Birthday; he can't remember those awful days we thought he'd never have even one.

It was a different doctor who diagnosed him with autism a few years later, and when she said, “You’re taking this very well,” my husband and I looked at each other and laughed. Lady (I wanted to say) he lived to see this diagnosis... and really all that matters are the first two words of that.

He’s always been full of miracles, this kid, one after another. When he was three or four, I watched him play with his Brio trains and told him: “Your Grandaddy would have loved to play trains with you. He had a real one.” A slight stretch of truth: my father didn’t own a locomotive, but for years he was the caretaker of one he loved, and it might have well have been his, for it was retired to a museum after my father’s death.

“I know,” my son said, though he couldn’t have known; I’d never mentioned such a thing before. “but his was green.” He wasn’t looking at me as he said that, which was just as well as my hair must have been standing on end. That old locomotive was green.

I asked my husband when he came home, if he’d ever mentioned my father’s engine to our son. He didn’t know what I was talking about: my father had died years before we met, and my husband didn’t even know about the trains. Son was still playing with trains while the Tweenies sang to him from the television, so my husband pulled me into the kitchen and whispered, What was the number of the engine?

“Fifty,” I whispered back, and we went back into the sitting room.

We sat down to join in the train playing, and Himself asked Son what number was on his Grandaddy’s train. I had no fear of him getting it right: the child could only count to eight at the time, and to twelve with help. But Son sat back, and after a long, long moment of that wide-eyed inward gaze we were so used to, he said, “Five.” It was as close as anyone with a vocabulary of 1-8 could possibly get.

The gifts from this child never end, but perhaps the biggest one is my lately-acquired gift of Belief. Since having him, I believe in miracles, I believe that they can even happen for me, and I believe in prayer. I believe in Christmas magic. I believe that one moment of joy can light your world with sunshine forever, even when common sense tells you that your life is in a pit. I believe in guardian angels and life that reaches beyond our experience or understanding or imagination.

I also believe, that I should be downstairs playing trains this minute, instead of writing this. But first I’m reminded of a few good links:

The Christmas Miracles Book is still taking submissions of true stories until the 24th of December, for publication next year.

Chicken Soup for the Soul is always looking for holiday stories; complete details of upcoming titles and what they’re looking for are on the website.

Anthology News and Reviews always has great markets, and this link will take you to news of a new magazine called Familymaker.

Boomer Baby Bliss is a wonderful blog, with this story that gave me the courage to even begin this post (you’re right, B, it IS hard!)

Moo-Dog and Radge. Just because.