David wrote, “Oh that I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest.*1

Like him I too feel like flying away from my problems. When I feel beleaguered by life’s challenges, when I think of balancing my work as a Law student, as a wife, and as a mother to an extra-special child with extra-special needs, I want to run away. Sometimes I’ve found myself wishing, that like the wall geckos, I could crawl up the walls and disappear into some obscure corner, where life cannot find me to throw obstacles at me.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a contestant on “Gladiators”*2 where there are heavily muscled men and women waiting to pummel me on every course.

You see, had Paapa been born that way, maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad…maybe, just maybe. But to have had an apparently “normal” baby for exactly 6months to the date of his birth, and then the very next day discover that he was not as healthy as we’d thought, was like someone had played a very cruel trick on me.

To have had him smile whenever he saw me come home, and see the joy on his face when I sang “kweku Bonsu’s gone to sea”*3 and then to suddenly get no sign of recognition, either of me or of his hitherto favourite song was absolutely heartbreaking. To have had him refuse breast milk at two months, and then four months later, see his rooting instinct back in full force was…difficult, to say the least. But what hurt most was to have to teach him to suckle again. Even that, he had forgotten. That’s when it really hit me that my son was a newborn all over again, at 6 months. To say that I was in despair is to grossly misdescribe, to the point of distortion, what I felt in those months.

But just like David, there is no escaping life. This is my call to service, and I can only turn to faith, and cry out to my God, to help me get through the toughest moments of my life. He has not given me a challenge, He has given me a gift; a gift made more precious because he requires special attention and care. Because He has done this, He will also give me grace to show love to my little one, to let him know that he is just as wonderful as any other child, although he may have to do things a bit different, or put in a little more effort than they.

God shares whatever burdens we may have with us, that is why we are asked to cast our burdens on the Lord, and He will sustain us.*4 I will fly to God, and He will enfold me in His arms, because He loves me.

Like the Psalmist, I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, because I know that my help comes from the Lord.*5

MYA BARNES

21/05/2014

notes

  1.  Ps 55: 6.
  2. game show with  obstacle courses, where ordinary contestants had were pitted against well-trained and extremely fit men and women- the “Gladiators”.
  3.   I replaced the name Bobby Shafto in the popular children’s rhyme/song.
  4.  Psalm 55 : 22.
  5.  paraphrased from Psalm 121.