Heaven’s very special child
We were on our way to visit an institution in 1954 with our three daughters:
Mary, twelve, Joan, nine, and Ruth, eighteen months old. Because of our
little Ruth, handicapped since birth, we were making this sad and silent trip.
We had been advised to place her in a special home. “It will be less of a
burden for your family,” “I think Ruth will be better off with children like
herself,” “You will have more time to look after your other children without
notice to a disabled person.”
To break the silence, I flipped on the car radio and accidentally heard the
voice of a former classmate. I remembered him as a boy without legs. He
now became president of an organization employing persons who are
disabled.
On the radio, he started to tell about his childhood and of a conversation with
his mother. “When it was time for another handicapped child to be born,” his
mother explained, “the Lord and his counselors held a meeting to decide
where he should be sent ... where there would be a family to love him. Well,
our family was chosen.”
At this, my wife - Edna leaned over and turned off the radio, gently said.
“Let’s go home.” Her eyes shined with unshed tears. I touched Ruth’s tiny
face. She looked like a beautiful symbol of innocence. I knew at that
moment Ruth was given to us for a very clear purpose. How miraculous it
was that the voice of a friend, with whom I’d had no contact for twenty
years, should the broadcast program on that day speak to me? Mere
coincidence? Or was it God’s unseen hand helping us hold on to a little girl
who would enrich our lives immeasurably in the years that followed?
That night, Edna could not sleep. She awoke at three o’clock in the morning
with thoughts that demanded to be written. And in the morning, I saw a pad
on the night-table, we pieced Edna’s notes together into the poem,
“Heaven’s Very Special Child”:
