A few weeks ago, my daughter’s homebound teacher was very surprised to see my special needs daughter run to the fridge in my kitchen, pick up the picture of Jesus that I have placed there and put it against her face. She then attempted to put it back with, my help, securely under the magnets that I use on my fridge.
The teacher couldn’t help but ask me “what is she doing?” She thought that Alex was about to throw the picture on the ground and was utterly shocked to see Alex attempt to kiss the picture and put it back. I turned to the teacher’s puzzled face smiling and responded, “She is greeting and kissing Mr. Jesus”. As I saw an additional puzzled look come over the teacher’s face, I tried to explain to her how Alex came about to know Mr. Jesus when I introduced his picture to her at my parent’s home many years ago.
Being a strong Catholic family, my parents pride themselves in displaying pictures of Jesus and Mary on their walls. I had grown up with similar surroundings, thus am used to acknowledging these spiritual images as I went about my day.
It is this strong religious upbringing that I hold dear to my heart and wish to pass on to my daughter. For any other family, this would come as a natural progression as a child grows and develops better understanding of certain expectations and different roles. However, things started out very different for our family. You see, my daughter, Alexandra, was born very prematurely. She weighed only 12 ounces and measured 8 inches at birth. She was hospitalized for the first eight months of her life, followed by many years of medical complexities, therapies and other interventions. In spite of this rough beginning, I took every opportunity to instill whatever religious and spiritual foundation I thought that my child would understand. I honestly was never sure what she could pick up on and what she couldn’t, but I constantly repeated the terms, gestures, little prayers or whatever was appropriate for a certain situation.
Therefore, as long as I can remember, I have carried my daughter to the image of Jesus displayed on my parents bedroom wall, touched it lovingly, completed the quick sign of the cross and whispered in her ears that we are greeting “Mr. Jesus”. I honestly don’t know where I came up with that name and why.
In spite of her special needs, I believe that my daughter has been listening to me all those years. She recognizes this picture now and whenever we are visiting my parents and I ask her to “go say hello to Mr. Jesus”, she will run to the room and wave her arm while smiling at the picture. She is still currently too short to reach it on the wall.
I have been thrilled to witness her completing the greetings that I did not, for the life of me, even think that she may recognize another picture of Jesus in a different location. She made this association so well when I recently put up a smaller picture of Jesus on my fridge. I had tears in my eyes when I saw her running to it, waving, and taking it from underneath the magnets that held it in place and placing it on her lips to give a little kiss to her friend and savior “Mr. Jesus”.
I didn’t understand the extent of her comprehension and association of objects and pictures until I witnessed her doing this on almost a daily basis. I felt pride explaining it to the teacher and others who have visited my home and seen her doing it, not just because of the cognitive skill this displays but because I had taught this to her.
I realized that if I didn’t teach her anything at all, at least I taught her the most important thing: how to love “ Mr. Jesus”.
©Copyright 2009.Najwa S. Hirn. All rights reserved.
