Good and Perfect Gift, A: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny
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She didn’t acknowledge him, but instead reached over and pulled William’s hair. “Ow,” she said. He slept on.
“Show me gentle,” I said, and she patted his head with her pudgy fingers. From there, she examined him. “Leg. Arm. Belly. Nose. Eye.” With each word, she pointed to the body part, concluding with a good poke in the eye and a squawk from her little brother.
Her eyes got wide.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. We just have to remember to be gentle.” I took her hand in mine. “Penny, when you were born, you were even littler than William. Can you believe that? But now you are big. You’re his big . . .”
She completed my sentence: “Didah!”
“Yes. His big sister. I’m so glad you’re his big sister. He’s going to love you so much.” She leaned against my chest one more time, and then she said, “Bye-bye. Mama. Dada. Wuwum.”
I looked up at Mom. “Well then, I guess it’s time to go.”
Mom lifted Penny off the bed and helped her put on her shoes. They held hands and Penny waved before she walked out the door.
A few minutes later, a nurse took William away so I could sleep. “It feels like a vacation,” I said to Peter. We had a lovely view. We had all the help we needed caring for our children. I pictured Penny again, walking out the door, hand in hand with her Nana. I imagined her in the hallway, waving good-bye to anyone in her path, straining to push the elevator button, tiring of walking before too long and reaching her arms up toward Mom. And then I thought back to our time together, all four of us as a family. The only emotion I felt was gratitude.
It was gratitude for William, for his safe arrival and his big gray eyes and his slender fingers and soft skin. Gratitude for his big sister and her kisses and cuddles and bright-eyed smile. But it was more than that. It was gratitude that our previous experience in the hospital really was gone forever. The grief we had felt back then had been transformed. It had turned to joy.
Penny wasn’t a perfect child. Neither was William. We weren’t a perfect family, and we never would be, at least not by the standards I would have set out for us years earlier. But we were coming closer to our telos, our true perfection, because we were learning what it meant to be human, what it meant to be whole.
About the Author
Amy Julia Becker writes and speaks about family, faith, disability, and culture. A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is also the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, First Things, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Hartford Courant, the Christian Century, Christianity Today, and Books and Culture. She is a regular contributor to Her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women’s blog. She also keeps her own blog, Thin Places, at www.patheos.com/community/thinplaces/. Amy Julia lives in New Jersey with her husband and her three children. For discussion questions and to read more, go to www.amyjuliabecker.com.
Twenty percent of the proceeds from this book will be given to organizations that care for and share life with people with disabilities, including the Special Hope Network (www.specialhopenetwork.com) and L’Arche (www.larcheusa.com).