And a Tiny Bird Fluttered in...Victoria's Story

 

I think that we can all attest to the fact that certain life events simply stop us in our tracks. It happens to everyone at one time or another, and the impact is no less intense no matter who experiences it. Life is indeed a journey, with many poets using wonderful and lyrical language through the centuries to describe such things as unexpected detours and instances where they had to choose from multiple roads moving off in different directions. 

Thirty-one years ago today, I was stopped brutally in my tracks, my own journey brought to a screaming halt by something I never saw coming. (Few of us ever do see it coming, and even if we do, we are still totally unprepared when the exact moment arrives.) 

It was a warm sunny day just like today, and I was in a room in the hospital's maternity wing watching my daughter come to terms with the fact that her tiny daughter, her first-born, would not be with us much longer. Born with a severe birth defect known as Renal Agenesis, or Potter's Syndrome, little Victoria spent her first and last few hours of life being showered with love and tears, many tears. I, along with a few other members of the immediate family, stood by, waiting for my turn to hold her and to try to impart to her all the love I could summon in such a short time. And then, she was gone, and the image is still burned like a brand into my memory of my daughter sitting there in the bed, totally helpless, totally powerless, and totally broken. The wound has long since healed, but the scar remains in my soul at not only having watched as my first grandchild was taken away against the hopes of everyone in that room, but also seeing how empty and lost my daughter looked.

Now here it is, 31 years later, and it's like it is happening again, right now, for the images retained from that day clutter my memory like a collage, each one overlapping each other, none fully and clearly visible. And that's what it felt like that day...one big hazy stage where all the players moved around as in a mist that has never fully quite lifted to this day.

So, little Victoria, who would no longer be little had life had different plans for her, came into our lives softly and quietly and went out of them the same way. But despite the short amount of time, her presence left a mark as deep as if she had lived to be 100. 

I've often compared her to a tiny bird that lights on a branch, sings a few quick notes, and flutters away again to parts unknown. And that is how I think of Victoria now...fluttering in and then fluttering out, leaving me, leaving us, all the more enriched by her preciously short time with us.