Sick Child

It’s Christmas Eve, 1961. At midnight I sit next to my 10-month-old daughter, Betty. She’s in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit of Lutheran Hospital Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She is fighting for her life, threatened by pneumonia and a serious staph infection. In spite of oxygen tents, respirators and I don’t know what other catheters, plug-ins and tubes, she can hardly breathe. It breaks my heart to see and hear her struggle for every breath. Worst of all is when she tries to cough, tries to get mucus out of her overburdened lungs. With each cough she grows weaker. The nurse had told me that if Betty survived until midnight then she would probably live. So I have prayed. I have meditated on another Child at Christmas midnight. I have tried to trust the goodness of God. I cannot stop my tears as another forced cough shakes her little body.

Is there any more agonizing experience for a parent than seeing one’s child hurt or sick or dying? Is there any greater challenge to one’s perception of how things ought to be than to see or to fear that one’s child will precede one in death?

It was not time for Betty to die. She not only survived, but has thrived. Even today as a mother and a clinical psychologist she has a special bond and care for little ones.

And her father has never again experienced Christmas Eve without thanking God for the gift of the Child and of His child, Betty/Lyzse/Elizabeth.