Chapter 9 And from the dismaying bedrock of need there was spawned a fragile dream, a dream of what we as a family could do to help solve some of these problems.

In the early spring, David hitchhiked out to Ohio to see Melissa.  When he returned to school, he typed the following letter to us and his fiancee, Kathy, in New York City who was finishing her training for a B.S. in nursing at Columbia

I filed it under D for David.

Hello All:

You probably know how this trip got started.  I suddenly realized that I had not seen my sister Melissa since she was five days old.

So I hitchhiked all the way to the home.  I went in to see Melissa right away, and I could tell she belonged to our family.  Those big blue eyes and blonde-red hair which had just been combed---a ribbon stuck on top!  And she smelled so good---she was a doll!  I picked her up and held her; and she never cried, although I’m sure she had a hard time getting used to the way her big brother held her.  I fed her a bottle and man, she’s a good eater.  When she finished, she let out a healthy burp!  Then I guess she was tired from my holding her so she hit the sack.  To say the least, I have fallen in love with her. 

When Melissa woke up, she and I went over to see Mike in one of the other rooms.  That little guy has the sweetest smile you have ever seen.  Then I put Melissa on my knees and moved her legs back and forth so as to give her a muscle workout.

Sunday afternoon, I again found myself out at the home and little Melissa was all dressed up in a pair of blue pants with a little checked jumper over that.  She was pretty and pink.  I got some big smiles, and she seemed quite comfortable in my arms.

What effect has this had upon me personally?  Well it engendered within me a love for my sister that had previously existed only in a depersonalized form.  Now I know her and have held her,  and my love wells up within me at my own inadequacies of imparting something that I have to here.  

My biggest problem is that I see her as a normal child and I keep hoping for an outside chance that somewhere along the line someone goofed and she really doesn’t belong there.  It is killing me. Man, I can hardly see the keys for the tears.  I can’t get my mind off the hopelessness of this situation. 

Please do me the biggest favor in the world----write me a letter about this letter.  I’m a bit upset!     

                                                         David

Minutes later, I was at my typewriter, trying to reach out long distance to heal his heartache.

David,

I have just this minute finished reading your letter describing your visit last weekend with Melissa. 

I know how you feel because we, too have experienced these heart-tearing moments.  And there is comfort in holding her warm little body close and whispering into her soft neck the never-to-be-answered question.  Why?  You can turn yourself inside out by longing for things that you cannot have, Dave.

Your biggest stumbling block right now is wishful thinking that maybe---just maybe--- it isn’t true and that your little baby sister is normal.  But, there’s an awfully simple key to this dilemma, and I don’t believe it’s an oversimplification of the problem at all.  It is this: “ Reality must be faced squarely!”

She is not normal and has no hopes of being normal.  God does not set in motion certain laws only to change them arbitrarily.  I think, David, that if you had observed other small babies and had seen their alert expressions and interest, you would more easily recognize Melissa’s condition.  The quicker you accept this, the simpler it is to adjust.

Do you realize how unnecessary heartache has festered in the lives of parents unwilling to look life straight in the eyes?  They poke their heads high into the clouds, whisper sentimentally,  “Maybe it isn’t so”; and they read into every look and action of their precious mongoloid baby,  progress!  “Maybe this will go responsive!”  And they focus their whole lives around this one unsuspecting angel that God has sent them, to the detriment of the normal children God has already given them.  Not to mention their warped attitude toward their life partner.

Life is such a vapor, David.  If this were all there were to living----these seventy or eighty years lived in a smutty old world filled with hatred and violence, trouble and tears,  forget it!  It just isn’t worth the strain.  But, gently, God is molding us to be vessel FIT for His name.  Maybe it had to take a Melissa AND a Martha for us!

We all ache to enjoy her in a normal relationship.  How much extra pleasure she could bring I cannot allow myself to imagine.  My heart would crush to pieces all over again.  Little Melissa will never know!  All the pain is on our side!

Someday her bonds will be loosed, and God will make her whole again.

Much love,

Mom

It was that same spring that I felt compelled to share the reasons why we placed Melissa in a home.  Perhaps I was defensive, but I felt very strongly that there was more than one way to cope with this problem.  And when I finished writing our story, I mailed it off hopefully to Good Housekeeping magazine.

I was nearly hysterical when a note of acceptance arrived with a generous check as well!  The article was published in November of that year under the title, “The Baby Our Love Could Not Cure,”  and soon the readers began to express their views.  The editors were wonderful.  They spared me some of the more scathing rebuttals----for there were many who disagreed violently with my solution-----but forwarded the rest for me to answer personally.  Challenging they were and time-consuming as well.  I soon found myself corresponding with scores of broken hearts all over the United States.

This letter came from a woman in Ohio:

Had it not been for a friend of mine, I would not have known about your article.  When my husband told her our sad news about our mongoloid baby, she rushed up to the hospital to visit me.  I was under sedation but able to talk.  She had the article open and began reading it to me.  As I grabbed the magazine from her and read it for myself.  I wish I could put down on paper what I felt there in the hospital room, but I can’t.  I do know, though, that here was our answer.  God bless you for writing the article, and I’m hoping it will help other couples faced with the same problem.

Here is a letter from a woman from Massachusetts:

Dear Mother of Melissa,

I have just finished reading the article that you wrote and I can’t tell you how much it meant to me.  A month ago our son was born.  We have a four-year-old daughter and had so hoped for a son.  How happy we were!  Two days later we learned that he is a mongoloid.  We have talked endlessly with family and friends and seem to get more and more confused every day.  All of the doctors have advised us to keep him at home for about four years.  Our families and friends think we should place him in a home as soon as possible.  We don’t know what to think.  I want to be able to give myself to my husband and daughter as always and wonder if it would be possible with him at home.  But I also have a tremendous feeling of guilt when I think of  taking him to a home.  I feel a special closeness to you as I think our situations are so similar.  If you ever have time, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

And Yet another----

I carried your article in my purse for four months as one would a Bible. I can’t honestly tell you why I did.  Perhaps if such were my fate, it would serve to comfort me or perhaps as a justification for what I might do if faced with the same situation.  I have since had my baby----my fourth son---and I thank God every day that he is a normal healthy child.  But God works His will in mysterious ways; and as it turned out, I save your article only to help someone else.  A friend of mine gave birth a few days ago to a mongoloid baby boy.

And often, it was a matter of groping along slowly with them, for these were tender matters of the heart.  I could not just sit down and bang off any old answer on my typewriter.  

My friend in Massachusetts wrote again that she had found a home ......

but that they will take him only as an infant, as they feel that the adjustment is far easier for both parents and baby at an early stage.  We have made arrangements to take him on December 19.  We feel that at this time our daughter will be excited about Christmas, and perhaps it will be easier for us to explain it to her.  I am still very confused and not at all sure that my conscience will allow me to actually take him.  Any word of encouragement from you would certainly be appreciated.  Am I buying my way out of a problem?  Is this the cross that God gave us to bear, and are we shirking our duty to Him not to bring up His child?  Will Sarah feel insecure if we take her babybrother away?  How I pray that the right answers will come to us.

And I answered her that day:

Certainly in the giving of advice, there is a wide divergence of opinions.  We encountered the same dilemma.  We observed also that many doctors to whom we spoke advised us to keep the baby home for one year,  often for a very practical reason-the lack of adequate physical facilities I think, though, to be utterly frank, professional opinion can be split rather neatly into two camps of thought on opposite sides of the river.  So then, the problems rests squarely on us.  and this is where hearts turn to God, the Giver of all wisdom, for doesn’t He know the way we take?  And doesn’t He truly delight in His children turning to Him for help?

I thoroughly agree that the adjustment is far easier for both parents and baby at an early stage.  If only you could talk with some of the parents, as we have, who have kept their children home for a few years and then decided to place their little ones in a home!  The tearing separation!  The confused little one who has to adjust from being the center of the household to a totally different kind of schedule!  I saw one little girl who had cried almost incessantly for two weeks.  Now she is one of the happiest children there, completely adjusted.  

Your daughter Sarah will adjust far more quickly than you to life without her little brother.  I would almost be a temptation to project your own feelings and think of them as her reactions.  I am confident she will accept your sensible statement that since her brother will never be like other children, it will be better for him to live where they know all about how to take care of him best.  Oh, the folly of my trying to choose words for you.  A mother’s heart and a dad’s heart have a way of knowing how to reach their own.

To answer you query on “ Is this the cross God gave us to bear?” I do not think a cross has any reference to sickness, accident, calamity or any other hardship that comes into our lives.  Many take a perverse pleasure in patiently bearing misfortune, in carrying burden that God never intended.  You will not be shirking your responsibility;  it will still be your money, your thoughtful planning for his welfare, and your great love that will take care of him the best way you know.  If your eyes became weak and you could no longer see, would you say, 

“ This is my cross; I must bear it?”  No, you would buy glasses!  Now, that’s purely feminine logic.  I even think about housework in this light.  It is my job to see that my husband’s shirts are washed and ironed and our house kept neat and tidy.  If I am financially able, do I shirk the thought of outside help to free me so that I may continue to be the actively healthy and happy mother and wife that my family need?

This isn’t “buying your way out of a problem,”  this is mature and sensible evaluation.  Don’t let pure sentiment be a motivation factor.   I often say, this is God’s will for our lives for now.  I do not know about the future----yet!  Maybe there will come a time when Melissa will be able to go to a special school to be trained.  I do not know. 

Many letters told of the discouraging search all over the country for suitable facilities.  Here we could empathize completely.  Had not we too been sickened by the sour diaper smells, the puddled floors, the paint-chipped cribs?

Our snug middle-aged work began to expand, and again we found that the question on our minds was, What can we do for these other children so like our Melissa?

We visited doctors, special schools, and homes for exceptional children and we looked and listened as those who knew told us of the dearth of adequate facilities for retarded children.  Our burden grew heavier as we became more knowledgeable.  

And from the dismaying bedrock of need there was spawned a fragile dream, a dream of what we as a family could do to help solve some of these problems.  Watered by our own natural enthusiasm, spurred on by our imaginations , the dream materialize into a twenty-four-a d-day preoccupation. 

Chapter 8........... “There should be a home like that in our part of the country. A home where love is felt.”

The next morning, the doorbell chimed and a special letter from Texas was handed to us.

Words written on a piece of paper and sent twelve hundred miles away somehow don’t seem very adequate.  We certainly have been praying for you as your search for a home for Melissa.  And it will only be a temporary home for her, we know, for there will be no cause for tears when you see her in heaven.  I’ve wondered how the Lord will change such little ones; but, however He does it, the perfection of heaven won’t leave any room for defect in its inhabitants.

Penny and I put our heads together and decided that maybe we could do something concrete and useful by urging you to come and spend a few days with us in Big D.  So we are enclosing two pieces of paper that might help.  They are strictly first class (don’t drink the liquor) and family plan ( which means you don’t travel on Sunday) and on a jet direct from you to us.  The rest is up to you.  Fill in the date and let us know.  If you could come soon, you might relax around the pool.  And if I could think of any more enticements, I’d include them too.  But then, I’m a theologian, not a sales manager.

They were the most beautiful words we had ever read.  Charles was indeed a theologian, a doctor of philosophy and dean of the graduate school at a Texas seminary besides being the author of many published books.  He had picked a charming wife---Penny----quite a bit younger than he was---”so that I may smell perfume in my old age, and not liniment.”  Charles proved to be a master of sound logic.

They had been delightful friends for our family before they and two precocious offspring moved to Texas.  We missed them sorely.  It did not take us long to fill in the missing dates.  Soon we were enjoying a complete switch of environment and change of pace. The therapy of sharing openly our doubts and misgivings over the momentous decision we had made seemed to hasten the healing process,  

Six days later back in Pennsylvania we felt whole and strong again.  Life was the same curious mixture of mundane and momentous.

**********************************************************

My first shopping trip to the supermarket proved to be a traumatic experience.  I noticed a small baby asleep on the cold wire bottom of a shopping cart with cans and boxes of breakfast cereal piled helter-skelter around him.  An older brother, grabbing whatever he could reach on the shelves, dropped his booty alongside his small brother.

I stood there furiously looking around for their mother.  A young girl, her head outlined in pink curlers, stood nearby, pinching heads of lettuce at a vegetable counter.

I seethed.  It took all the strength I could muster not to snatch the little one out of the cart.  His round face and wide eyes peeped out alertly from his grimy white knit cap.  Tears stung my eyes as I left the store, not remembering what I had come for.

*************************************************************

Our visits to Melissa were shattering as well!  The scare tissue was so thin that each time we held her in our arms it was a though we were entering the very same Gethsemane all over again.

On our very first visit we arrived around ten in the evening, bone-weary after ten hours of turnpike driving.  The lights were dimmed and we tiptoed through the halls past the sleeping sounds of the children.

Down the long hall, through a buzzer-operated door, we hurried, faster and faster.  Paul with his long strides was always just a shadow ahead.

“Paul.”  I looked down into on of the cribs by the window. “This----is this our Melissa?”

I pawed through my purse to find my glasses.

“ Honey, no!” His voice was gentle.  “That isn’t our baby! They must have moved her crib.  Here she is, over by the door.”

I walked away from this small stranger with a sob of relief. But my heart gave a sickening lurch when I held my own three-month-old Melissa in my arms and looked at her carefully.  She was more like Geide than ever---a plump young-old face with eyes that would not focus for long on anything. 

Her body was warm and passive, and we held her tightly and walked and rocked her.  It was all we had.  Each crib we passed held other babies like her, some misshapen in body but all slow of mind.  Cribs filled with heartaches--and so many----so many.

Michael, almost five years old, could do nothing but smile, and this he did with gusto.  We stopped to play with him---pat-a-cake and tickle- in the-ribs, and whatever we could do to bring forth that big lopsided grin of his. 

Driving home the next day, we did not talk much.  Paul’s knuckles were white as he maneuvered into the stream of Sunday traffic.  I stared through the side window dully.  

“There should be a home like that in our part of the country.  A home where love is felt.”  The statement hung there between us, and no comment was made for many miles.

*****************************************************************

When Melissa was seven months old, I went on a shopping expedition to replace her outgrown baby clothes.  It was a small children’s -wear shop.

“I’m looking for an overall set for a little baby girl.” They were heart-filling words.  I wondered how deep into my soul the salesman could look.

“What size do you want, lady?” he asked.  “We have infant sizes from 0 to 3 and toddler sizes from 3 to 6X.  I swallowed hard.  What size is she wearing?  I thought.  I don’t know.  I don’t know her correct size.

“She is s-seven months old.”

“Age doesn’t tell the story, you know.  Babies vary a great deal in their rate of growth.  How much does she weigh?”

My hands were wet with perspiration. What had they said in their last letter?

“About sixteen pounds I guess” I said in a low voice.  He gave me a long look. 
“Is this a gift, ma’am, or is this for your own baby?”

I could not speak.  My own baby?  I could not find words to answer the question.

Oh, yes, she is my own, yet she is five hundred miles away and I do not know any of the little things about her that I long to know.  I mumbled something meaningless under my breath and walked quickly out of the store.

****************************************************************************

Again and again, the hurt came back.

We were attending a charity dinner in a large hotel ballroom where we were seated at a table with five other couples, three of whom I had never met before.  In exchanging pleasantries, the inevitable question came up.

“And how many children do you have?”

“Five,” I answered.

“Well, you’re doing all right for yourself,” she chattered on gaily.  “How old are they?”

“Two in college, and two in high school and a seven month-old baby.”

She whipped the information out of my mouth.

“Can you believe it?  This gal has two children in college and a new baby at home.  How about that?  I’ll bet it gives you a new lease on life to have a little one around the house.  Tell us all about your new baby.”

I knew if I opened my mouth, I would burst into tears.  But Paul jumped into the gap and adroitly changed the subject.

So I learned to say quite simply whenever family questions were asked, “We have five children, two in college, two in high school, and a little baby who is living in a special home for retarded children in the Midwest.”

The subject was usually dropped after a passing expression of sympathy.  I would never deny Melissa’s existence even to a stranger. 

Chapter 7.... It was as though I was ripping out my own heart as I turned and walked away...........

The dreaded morning dawned;  the sun rose, a tired breeze blew now and then, and the mockingbird, intoned his doleful message over and over.  It was that morning that our twenty-three-day -old Melissa was to leave the sterile world of the hospital and enter her own special sphere of the retarded----500 miles distant.  It was that dreadful, dreadful morning when our dear, sad family gathered in the driveway around our car to see face to face our small handicapped baby, to bid her good-bye, even before their hello’s were uttered.  

They came wearing robes over their pajamas, in bare feet and with sleep-creased faces, and they huddled in silent homage around the white wicker basket wedged on the back seat of the car.  They viewed her through the magnifying lens of their emotions as they gently pulled back her soft pink blanket and reached out to touch her small bare feet.  Steve maneuvered his big thumb inside the clasp of her pink fist and stood mutely, his dark-brown eyes flooded with tears. How could it be that this small one, our baby so innocent, so seemingly perfect, was retarded?

Watching the tears streaming unchecked down my own mother’s face, I knew that she could not understand the wisdom of the impending separation.  I could almost feel her grandmother’s heart reaching out to enfold this child with the broken wing.  And my dear father, almost seventy- five stood somewhat apart, bewildered and reluctant to face the full impact of our decision.

“It is time now.”  It was Paul, ringing down the final curtain on this desolate scene.  

Our farewells were automatic;  we departed without further fanfare. There is so much a body can stand.

It was a ten-hour trip by automobile, but Melissa never once cried.  I cuddled her almost fiercely.  Tears splashed down on her upturned face, and she blinked in wonder.  I examined her face over and over, but each feature seemed perfect.  Inside I felt tied in knots of agony.  I did not know that I had the capacity to weep for such a long period.  By the end of our journey I was physically and emotionally exhausted.

We we reached the small town and spotted the home set back from the road in a cluster of trees, I panicked.

“Please drive by,” I begged Paul.  “I can’t do it.”

He pulled off the road and together we held our baby and cried.  How long we sat there, I do not know.  There were no audible words of prayer.  But we knew that God was with us.

Melissa grew restless and Paul turned on the ignition.  We drove back again to the square white house, very slowly.

There were three short steps in the front.  We walked up numbly, like robots.  Before our hands touched the doorknob, the supervisor met us with a smile and a cheery greeting.

“Well,  if it isn’t our new baby all the way from Pennsylvania.  May I hold her?

“My, if she isn’t the cutest little pumpkin.  Mary, come here and see this adorable---” And so it went.  It was like showing off any baby to adoring relatives.

Before we knew it we were in a nursery with three picture windows and twenty-two- stainless steel cribs.  The babies ranged in age from one month to three years.----babies suffering birth defects,  brain damage, and many crippled by cerebral palsy.

“Strange company to leave you with, my small one, but you belong here,”  I whispered over and over.  “This is your world.”

A yellow patchwork quilt was turned back on Melissa’s bed.  We gratefully watched her stretch.  Then we inspected the rest of the home.  In one room we saw fourteen mongoloid children about ten to twelve years old seated around a low table.  They were feeding themselves, sloppily but happily.  Each had a big bib running from under his chin much like any family dinner table, everybody jabbering at once.  Later we saw the same children in bathrobes and pajamas sitting on the floor in front of a television set.  

Everywhere we saw signs of love and care.  And our hearts were content.  Here was a place where we could be sure that Melissa would be safe and happy.

It was not easy to leave her there the next day.  When I bent over her crib to kiss her soft cheek, she was sleeping soundly.  I looked at her for a long hard moment.  It was as though I was ripping out my own heart as I turned and walked away.  Our return trip was bleak.  Neither of us felt like speaking.

When we thumped our suitcases on the kitchen floor, the first thing my eyes lit upon was our calendar.  In bold black letter it spelled out the month, September, and the day, Tuesday, and the numeral, 3.  And I drew in by breath sharply.  It was as though time had stopped on the day of Melissa’s birth.

Under the date there was a Bible verse: “ I shall yet praise Him.”  I ripped it off and stuffed it into my purse.  Thank God for a mentally handicapped child?  No, there will be no thank you for Melissa from me.  

Chapter 6.... Behind an over sized metal door were rows upon rows of chipped, painted cribs.......

Chapter 6

Our oldest boy, David, a rising junior in a New York college, was visiting at the home of his fiancee, Kathy, in a small town near Montreal when Paul’s telephone call arrive telling him of Melissa’s condition.  

David was conscious of the strained silence at the dining room table as he answered in stunned monosyllables.  And when he had hung up the receiver and returned to his place, David faced the questioning eyes of Kathy, her older sister, two brothers, and her parents.

“Melissa is a mongoloid.”

David blurted it out, then retreated into a tower of silence.  He wanted to avoid a family discussion because he was not sure exactly what a mongoloid was.  

“Does this mean that Kathy and I might have a mongoloid baby, too?”

Gently and kindly, Kathy’s doctor-father explained the happenstance of this chromosomal abnormality.

“Melissa,” he said quietly, “has received the damning gift of one extra chromosome at the time of conception.   Her blood cells will continue to divide and reproduce in the same imperfect manner, thus establishing as an irrevocable trust her sad inheritance.  Your mother, David, because of her age ran an extra risk of having a child with Down’s Syndrome ( which is the more knowledgeable way to refer to mongolism).  Her chances were one in seven, at least those are the figures now quoted.”

David’s fears were somewhat quieted, but later that evening he broke down and sobbed in Kathy’s arms.

Each of the children in his or her own way bore the double-barreled blast of grief---remembering baby Martha and questioning the “why” of baby Melissa.  We were pathetically grateful that they did not challenge ( at least not openly) the wisdom of our decision to place Melissa in a private home.

Paul took three days off from work the following week and he and I started out early each morning on our mission.  Our goal was to visit as many of the mental health facilities in our geographical area as we could locate. 

I will not soon forget the day that we visited our first state mental institution.  Here, we were told, almost 3,000 retarded of all ages lived, with a waiting list of nearly 7,000 more.  A staggering thought.  Acres of green lawns and wooded areas surrounded the complex of rectangular brick buildings.  A network of macadam roads spun in and out and around the tired-looking structures.

We kept looking for small children, and when I spotted a group of what appeared to be about fifty or more boys in an open field, I asked Paul to pull over to the edge of the road.  We got out of the car and walked closer,

“Looks like they’re going to play baseball or something,” I said.

They were milling about uncertainly, dressed in an odd assortment of cast-off clothing.  Some older men wore women’s dresses that flapped around their ankles.  Even the youngest----who might have been twelve or thirteen-----had old and creased faces.  Over in one corner a gray-haired woman in a white uniform threw back her head to blow puffs of smoke into the air.  She did not seem to see us or anyone else.

I watched with a kind of fascination.  Then Paul put his arm on my shoulder and gently turned me away . We walked to the car in complete silence.

We were not allowed to tour the buildings without a guide.  A young girl was assigned to this responsibility, and we followed in her wake like two mechanized dolls.

“Would you like to see the crib area?”

“Oh, yes,” I said eagerly.

The sand and dirt gritted under our heels on the concrete steps and halls, making a hissing, scraping sound.  Behind an over sized metal door were rows upon rows of chipped, painted cribs.  I expected to find babies or small toddlers, but in each crib was a body with arms and legs and a face with eyes---shipwrecks of humanity huddled in smelly, sodden diapers and tattered gray undershirts.  And some were even as they came into the world -----naked as your nose.

It was like entering another world ----a world where bodies grew and minds stood still---a world where troubled minds could not control twisting bodies,  where eyes would not focus, heads grew too large or forever remained too small, those who banged their heads against their cribs, or beat their bodies with tightly clenched fists.  And my heart screamed out; Were these the creation of a loving God? I fled to the next room where they were spooning out the food for supper.

There is a verse somewhere in Exodus, “Who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind?  Have not I the LORD?

Then our guide unlocked the doors to the dayroom------large, cement-floored room with benches around the sides and long tables here and there for no apparent reason.  This was their playroom, yet I could see no toys or playthings.

“What do they do all day?” I asked.

But nobody heard the question.  The minute we entered the room we were swallowed up by the clamoring children. I could not understand their garbled speech as they reached out to grab  or touch my dress.  I wanted to pull away and unclasp their fingers, but somehow I did not dare; it would be like rejecting my own Melissa.

“Which are the mongoloids?”  I asked.

She pointed them out, calling them “ the best of the lot” and “ if you had to have a retarded child, thank God it’s a mongoloid.”  but her words were small comfort.

After that break through into the “world of perpetual children” we started down the list of private homes.  I did not know what to expect, but we discovered waiting lists here, as well as crowded conditions, high monthly cost, and a seeming lack of honest-to-goodness love and concern. It was a macabre world of dreary routine, bed-making, diaper-changing and meal- feeding, and it left us chilled to the bone.

Then, unexpectedly, we heard of a children’t home located in the Midwest.  Friends of ours in the area spoke of it with highest praise.  On the basis of this, we made application for Melissa’s admission.  Regulations, however dictated that she be admitted directly to this home upon hospital discharge, without a home visit.  

......And then it was that I noticed her large saucer like eyes and the tiny, tiny slant in her left eye.

Chapter 5 by Mildred Krentel.....Melissa Comes Home

The next morning when they brought her into my room for her early feeding, I checked her over carefully.  Ten fingers, ten toes----the usual mother’s routine, but accompanied by an unsung love ballad.

And then it was that I noticed her large saucer like eyes and the tiny, tiny slant in her left eye.

I propped her alongside me and she collapsed into a small uncompromising heap, like one of those Japanese sleeping dolls.

“They must have forgotten to put any starch in you honey, I whispered into her flat pink ear, wondering who in the world she looked like. Brother Bob?  Or big sister Diane?  Or possible some forgotten relative?

Quite unbidden, there came to mind the face of a twenty-ish girl whom I had not seen for many years.  Sunday after Sunday, she had attended our church in Greensboro, always placing herself in the very front pew.  I seemed to recall that she had a rather unusual first name; Geide!

I stared anew at my baby lying asleep in my arms.  Melissa looked exactly like Geide!  And I began to shiver from head to foot.  For Geide was a mongoloid.

“Dear God, how could You?”

I lay back against the pillow and let the tears roll in a deep soundless sobbing.  When the nurse came to take Melissa from my arms, I could not open my eyes.  I wept for myself, too old and too tired to even think of more babies.  I wept for my family at home, and I wept for my husband, my love.  Oh, surely this would break his heart.!

The three hours that I lay there waiting for the morning visit of my pediatrician were of the purest agony.

And then, footsteps down the hall.  My obstetrician poked his head into my room.

“How’s the new mother?”

I turned my face away toward the window.  He walked over to my bed and patted my foot cheerily.

“I’m worried about my baby.”

“Now, now, why should you worry?  Your little baby girl is perfectly all right---face a little bruised from delivery but other than that----”  His voice trailed off.

I managed a quick smile so that he would go away.  He left, reassuring me every step of the way to the hall.

Maybe I was getting neurotic. Where was my baby’s doctor?  I must hear it from him.

When at last he appeared, in his faultless attire, I brushed aside all amenities.

“What does a mongoloid baby look like?” 

He turned away from me, too quickly, and then began to answer in a deliberately professional manner, devoid of any emotion.

“The mongoloid child has a broad face; the bridge of his nose is flat, and the eyes appear to be almond-shaped.  those are the signs you would most easily recognize.  Of course, there are tests too.”

Do you suspect my baby of being a mongoloid?”

“We were waiting for the results of a few more tests, but your suspicions have made it easier for me to tell you that she is afflicted with Down Syndrome---a mongoloid.”

Well, there is was.  I did not need to hear more  It was a cold, bleak fact. I had given birth to a mentally retarded child.

***************************************************************

There is a spiritual called, “ I Won’t Have to Cross Jordan Alone.”  This was a terrifying Jordan, and although I was well acquainted with the one who had promised to cross with me, it was so very black all around me, I could not seem to find His hand.  It seemed to me, in those terrible moments, that I would have to cross all alone.

I put in a long-distance telephone call for Paul who had flown to Pittsburgh for the day.  He was in the office of one of the vice-presidents of United States Steel.

“Paul, I need you.  Can you come right home?”

“What’s wrong, honey?  Tell me, what is wrong?”

“It’s not me.”

“The baby?”  His voice was incredulous.

“Melissa is a mongoloid.”  How utterly cruel of me to package a heartache so neatly in four little words. The impact was immediate.

He was at my side in two and a half hours. He stood in the doorway for a long minute just looking at me, tears streaming down his face.  I could hardly bear his grief.  It is an awesome thing to see a big man break down and sob.

That evening, towards dusk, my husband and I were able to talk and reason together.  There had come a calm and quietness.  And we haltingly began to clothe with words our acceptance of the present and our worries over the future.

The doctor, in his impersonal way, had already suggested placing Melissa in an institution.  But all our instincts screamed against the thought of turning over to others the particular burden that God had given us. We would take our imperfect angel home.

Yet, somehow, through the pain that even talking about this gave us, we felt that we were not thinking clearly, not separating emotion from reason. We then did the only thing we knew.  

We turned to the problem over to God.  He had sent it in the first place, and He certainly must know how He wanted us to handle it.

“God, Melissa is Yours and so are we.  You have promised wisdom to those who ask.  OK, we are asking!”

We began to consider the four other normal healthy children which God had given us and the solemn responsibility we had to each of them as well as to our baby.  Would bringing Melissa home create an intolerable situation for them?  Would we end up devoting our lives to one we could never cure, at the expense of four teenagers who also needed so much from us?

Then the pendulum would swing back again.  The feeling of guilt that accompanied the thought of giving our baby up was overwhelming.  We felt as though we would be side-stepping our God-given duty.  And to be honest, there was the fear of outside censure.  would not our friends and neighbors be critical?  How much easier to win their respect and admiration if we brought Melissa home, gave up our outside activities, and dedicated ourselves to the care and training of this special child with her special needs.  

Here, too, we realized that we must not allow our feelings of guilt to dictate our decision.  Our baby’s welfare must be our first and most important consideration.

Melissa would always need someone to care for her physical and emotional needs.  She was entitled to the privilege of associating with people on her own level, with similar mental and social capacities.  Had we a right to isolate her in a cocoon, albeit a cocoon of love?  And what about the inescapable fact that we might not always be here to take care of her?  I was forty-two and Paul was forty-three. We must plan realistically for her future.  

Pearl Buck, in her book, The Child Who Never Grew.says it all so simply:  “The world is not shaped for the helpless.” 

Finally we came to the most important truth of all:  Keeping Melissa

at home would not make her be any more “accepted” by us, nor would placing her in a special home make her any more “rejected.”

So it was that we decided to place Melissa in a home for retarded children.

I remembered reading somewhere about the two kinds of sorrow that man must endure.  One was called “escapable” and the other, 

“ inescapable.”  The first occurs where death strikes--swift, final and irrevocable.  but the door is closed.  The freshness of the agony dissipates.  the days and years pass; there is a welcome blurring of the memory, and the soothing balm of healing.  There is an escape.  That was Martha.

The inescapable sorrow is is that which must be faced when a crippling defect in mind or body occurs---much like a stone which is thrown into a pond.  The placid waters part to receive the stone and then flow back together as the stone sinks slowly to the bottom of the pond, there to remain,  buried and deep.  An inescapable sorrow must be accepted and made friends with, for there is no escape.  Hello, Melissa mine!

**************************************************************

At five-thirty the following morning, as the wheels of the baby carts were squeaking eerily down the corridor,  I made a quick decision.  When the nurse handed me my baby to breast-fee, I asked for a bottle of formula.

Even so, i was consumed with grief while she lay so helplessly by my side.  Each meal grew progressively worse. I could no longer find the small opening to her mouth with my eyes awash with tears and my breasts aching to be emptied.

The next morning I asked that they feed her in the nursery.

Still, I could not keep myself away.  I tottered down the hall to the nursery and stood weakly by the large picture window while a young nurse cuddled Melissa in her arms.  And it was a hurtful thing.  

O God, You have placed in my hands a strange burden.  I cannot see the size or the shape of it clearly just now, but I know You have tailored it to fit.  For You made my frame and You must have remembered that I am no very strong.  Help me not to forget what I have known about You for such a long time.  Please help.

An uncontrollable trembling seized me from head to foot.  I willed myself to be still.  So still that I could hear the throbbing of my heart against my eardrums. I listened, straining.   There was no voice from on high, no whisper in the winds,just a very matter-of-fact voice bursting against my senses.

“Come, you had better go back to your room now.”

**********************************************************

A few days later, I was discharged from the hospital.  The sunshine was everywhere that morning as we said our shaky good-byes.  My husband carried my suitcase and I held a potted yellow chrysanthemum in my hands.   Down at the end of the long hospital corridor, our five-day-old daughter slept peacefully in the nursery.  I could not trust myself to bid her good-bye.

What horrendous deed was I about to perform?  What unnatural love was my mother heart spilling out that I could leave my baby behind for strangers to care for and walk out of the hospital empty-armed?