Grandma didn’t talk back; she hasn’t talked much when we’ve been to see her in recent months. Tonight, she gazed at Christine and drifted in and out of sleep. In the other room, I helped Lizzy finish her Valentine’s Day card for Grandma while Christine attempted to keep a conversation going. After a few minutes, I heard Christine singing.
Singing, we’ve decided, is a good way to attempt communication with someone who can’t carry on a conversation. Some people can conduct one-way conversations with noncommunicative people for a long time, but both Christine and I have a hard time sustaining a monologue like that. (Heck, we’re not all that good at maintaining conversation when the other party can talk.) So we sing when we visit Grandma, and we sing to Caroline a lot—especially when she’s in the hospital and we’re trying to comfort her or entertain her when sitting by her bed for hours on end.
I first realized the value of this when Caroline was first born. After all the immediate life-saving sort of activities that kept us all frantic for the first several hours of Caroline’s life, there was a lot of time of just sitting by Caroline’s bed in the ICU and waiting for her to heal and wake up. She was mostly unconscious for the first two weeks of her life, really. [vv Lizzy with baby Caroline the day she came home from the hospital.]
At first, I remember, I tried to talk to this little child. I told her all about her mom and her sister and so on, but that didn’t seem terribly effective to me. Then I remember thinking that she might recognize music. We sing primary songs a lot at our house—especially at Lizzy’s bedtime—and I wondered if Caroline would have heard those songs while still in the womb and if the melodies would be familiar and comforting. So I began singing primary songs to her. I sang the bedtime songs, in particular, over and over, but I also went through all the other songs I could think of.Lizzy’s main bedtime song is “I Am a Child of God,” and I sang that song to Caroline many times during those first couple of weeks. After a few days of this had passed, I remember one day sitting next to Caroline’s hospital bed—with numerous tubes and wires pumping life-preserving stuff in and relaying life-monitoring info out—and singing “I Am a Child of God.” Again. As I sang, looking down at that little motionless child, the words I was singing suddenly struck me with a bit of a jolt: “I am a child of God, and so my needs are great.”
I thought, “Wow, is that ever true of this child of God.” Her needs at that moment were indeed great. She needed machines and medications and blood and tests and nurses and doctors and phlebotomists and parents. But more intimidating to me at that time was her future needs, which were slowly becoming clear. The doctors were starting to figure out how much damage had been done to her brain by the lack of oxygen, and a picture of her difficult future was starting to take fuzzy shape, though there were still many questions.
But I also thought about the other verses of the song. “I am a child of God, and He has sent me here” goes the first verse. This was perhaps the most profound thought for me as I pondered its application to Caroline. He had sent her here, in this form, at this time, to us. As I sang that verse, I was comforted by the knowledge that God was not only in charge of the big things in the universe, He was also in charge of the little things, like Caroline. And He sent her here, and He must know what He is doing. And I just need to let go of some of my fears and trust Him a little bit more. Whatever happens with Caroline, it will be OK because God is in control.
And then the last verse: “I am a child of God, rich blessings are in store.” As Christine shared the news of Caroline’s birth and disabilities with some of her friends who are not members of the Church, the importance of our eternal perspective became clear to us. If you don’t believe in a life before this one or a life after it, Caroline’s mortal condition is terribly devastating: this disabled, troubled life is all there is to Caroline’s entire existence. But with our perspective, with the knowledge that she was a glorious child of God before this life and that “rich blessings are in store” for Caroline after this life, then you are filled with so much hope and peace and joy and your love and care for Caroline is so much more complete. You know that somewhere inside that damaged physical form is a brilliant and awe-inspiring spirit, of which we are just the temporary custodians, and there is so much to look forward to in your association with her in the next life.
I was also struck as I sang that song by its application to my life. I am a child of God, and He has sent me here. He is in charge of and is guiding my life and I can trust Him to know what He is doing, especially when challenges arise. And my needs, though very different from Caroline’s, are oh so great, and I need His help with those needs. And for me, as for Caroline, rich blessings are in store if I live worthily.
Tonight among the songs we sang to Grandma was “I Am a Child of God.” It applies to her every bit as well as it does to Caroline and as it does to me. We also sang “Abide with Me” and “I Know My Father Lives.” Somehow when you are singing songs like that to someone who can’t sing with you, but who gazes at you intently as you sing—as Grandma did at me tonight—the song’s meaning is deeper and clearer and more personal. And for a moment, at least, it seems that you are actually communicating, or, more accurately, communing, with each other.
We also sang “Teddy Bears Picnic,” because Grandma has a lot of teddy bears around her apartment. That song took on absolutely no new meaning. :)
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