THAT HOPE MOMENT

MOMENTS OF HOPE

In any life there are hope moments, moments that count in the big picture, moments that make a lasting difference. Sometimes we recognize them when they happen. At other times the recognition comes years later.
One of my hope moments happened when our son was four years old. It was a hot and dusty day. The temperature in the old Volvo must have been near the boiling point. We were making a visit to the foster parents who had delivered him to us just prior to his first birthday. We had done our best to keep them alive in his memory, selecting a prominent backyard location for the tree they gave him, telling him stories of how good they were to him. Still, you really don’t remember much of the first four years of your liefe.

This was the first time he would return to their home.
We were only a few miles away from our destination when he said a word that sounded like: “Bird.” We looked around but nobody saw a bird. He kept on saying: “Bird!” We kept on looking. Soon we were all impatient, wanting to change the subject. With tension mounting, we were relieved when the house came into view.
In only a moment we were out of the car and at the front door. And what did we find just beyond the door sill? Well, you may already have guessed it. It was a bird, a brightly-coloured, chirping, singing, calling bird. His foster mother, smiling with delight said, “That bird remembers you. Your playpen used to sit right here.”

We were dumbfounded. For he, a boy who had left this house before his first birthday, remembered the bird. It was a time of surprise, a moment that brought into question all my beliefs and assumptions about memory. It was a time when I realized that the world might just be amore mysterious and interesting place than I had thought.

Since that day I’ve been a little more conscientious, tried to be a little more informative when talking to babies. They just might remember something I said.