While visiting our daughter and her family my wife and I were invited to attend Sunday services with them. We were happy to do so.
Sitting in the pew I observe a young girl about 13 or 14 sitting between her parents in the row immediately in front of me and slightly to my left. She turns and smiles at me. I smile back. She turns away. My 18 month old grand daughter Clare is standing by me on my left. A lovely child she is fair with blond hair in tight ringlets.
I seem to be her favorite for she will ask for me if I am not present. She calls me “Papa”.
Often I will get kisses while others are refused. Even her mother and father and my wife, who dotes on her must often beg.

The girl turns again and smiles. A sweet smile, yet I perceive something is wrong. She does not speak or sing with the rest of the congregation. Does not interact with her siblings. She is the only one sitting between her parents. I watch her. She turns yet again and smiles and I can see her gaze is not vacant but it is the look of one of diminished capacity. Later confirmed by my daughter.

Just then Clare leaned over and kissed me on the temple, twice. I am and have been smitten with this child for some time. Happy and good natured she is much like me in that she will eat almost anything and appear to like it while her older sister Audry, who I love equally, is a picky eater like her mother and my wife.

Her kiss brings me back from observing the girl in front of me and I am forced to compare the two. My healthy, intelligent grand daughter and the young girl who will never be right. Likely she will never marry, never be a mother and will probably end her life in an institution. The comparison is heartbreaking. The service is underway.
I cannot leave so I sit and weep in silence for her misfortune. No one notices.

Though grateful for my own good fortune to have such lovely children about me, I feel undeserving. Would that I could reach out and touch her and make her whole. Make her intelligent. Make her eloquent that she could grow up and take her place in society. Alas it cannot be and I weep some more. Her path will be like so many others who are born without normal brain function. Always dependant, constrained, frustrated, never able to fulfill the measure of their existence. She is but one of many who are thus compromised.

If you believe there truly is a benevolent God who is all powerful and all knowing then it begs the question. Why should this child be condemned to a life such as this? There are theories and explanations but in truth no one really knows. The service is ending and I must compose myself. We file out to our respective Sunday School classes. She is followed closely by her parents and I am later told that she is prone to sudden outbursts.

Likely she is smart enough to have some realization of her limited capabilities but cannot fully comprehend why she is not like the others her age. Why she is not allowed the same freedoms, the same privileges. Why she cannot speak and make her wishes known. Is she, like a caged animal mentally pacing back and forth looking for a way out that will never come. We cannot know for she is unable to tell us. I watch her pass out of my sight. I never see her again.

The experience has left me saddened and I am compelled to unburden myself of these feelings by setting them to print. Perhaps upon some future visit to these feeble attempts at writing the light will come on and I will have my answer.