What are you looking at?

                      When I was 37 years old I became a grandmother for the first time.

 Of course, he was absolutely the most beautiful child in the entire universe! He was always very big for his age so when he would act his age people would sometimes stare and react to his behavior in a way that let me know that they thought that he was at least two years older than he actually was.

 Of course, he was a perfect child and never acted any way but perfectly in my biased opinion! He had the most beautiful big brown eyes that were so kind and loving and twinkled when he laughed. He has always been a gentle "giant" but that is why God made him so big. He needs to be that size to hold that giant heart that he has.

When he was about thirteen months old we began to notice that some of his photos had something unusual showing up in them. In about one out of fifty photos, the pupil of the left eye would reflect the light slightly larger than the pupil in the right eye.The white dot would appear larger in the left eye. We just assumed that the light source in the photo must have been shining more brightly on the left. It was such a slight difference in the white dot that shows light reflection in photos. One day I was putting his photos in my scrapbook that I was making for him and I decided to use a black pen that is used to adjust the "red eye" that sometimes occurs in photos. I normally did one roll of film at a time but this particular day I was working on five rolls of film. (this was before digital photos) Because there were more photos, there were also more photos where the left eye had that same white spot reflecting.I suddenly realized that this wasn't a coincidence. When I mentioned it to his mother,she pointed out that if you stood in front of him with the overhead light behind you so he was looking up towards it that sometimes you would see a slight halo of grayish colored light around his left pupil. He began to run into furniture and even occasionally a door frame or two but we assumed it was because he wasn't paying attention or because he was just young. One day I noticed that he couldn't pick up the pieces of corn on his plate without tilting his head to the right and holding his face very close to the plate to see the pieces of food. I noticed that he was over-reaching past the corn or his hand was trying to pick up the corn before he got to it. I realized that his eye-hand coordination used to be so much better. I made an appointment to go to get his eyes checked. He had always gone to the military doctors where his father was stationed. My daughter made sure that he went regularly for exams but we found out later that this problem that he had is usually discovered by family in photos!

(This is how tiny it usually showed up on a few of his photos. Most of the photos would look "normal"

   (this photo was taken on the same morning as the photo above where he is wearing the same outfit.. That is why doctors don't normally notice it and parents and grandparents do. It randomly shows in photos or in certain light under certain conditions.)


 Within five days of his eye exam, we were standing in a waiting room while the surgeon removed his left eye! He had a very rare cancer called Retinoblastoma. There is only one child a year from our state that gets this particular type of cancer and that year it was my beautiful brown eyed angel! I had never loved someone as much as I loved that firstborn grandchild! He was my world!

 Within days of his surgery, his mother realized that she was pregnant with her second child. This was a shock! She felt like God was taking her baby boy and sending a "replacement" for him. The irony was that the new baby was due on my other angel's birthday. But the sweet boy would say "It's not a boy baby. It's a blue eyed sister. I asked Jesus for a sister."

                                                    (See how tall my 2 year old sweetheart was!)                          


 There was another unusual thing that happened where he "talked with Jesus." When he wanted to be picked up and held by one of us, he would say "Big hug Baby."(He called himself, "Baby" because I called him that) When he came out of surgery and was still semi-conscious from the anesthesia, he said "Baby, no big hug Jesus." I know that this is selfish but I am so glad that Baby didn't " "big hug" Jesus at that time if it meant that He had come to take back this precious angel that He had loaned to us! Baby's poor 19 year old mommy cried and cried.

This is the catheter that was inserted directly into his heart to administer the chemotherapy.

Soon we were traveling back and forth to St. Jude's Children's Cancer Research Hospital in Memphis,Tennessee every 21 days. They told us that it is quite common for cancer to tear families apart or bring them even closer than ever before.The marriages that are already struggling don't usually make it. We saw many children like ours being attended by just their mothers and grandmothers. It was a "club" that we found ourselves suddenly a member in that we didn't want to be involved with. My angel's Mommy and Daddy were very young at the time and soon before the first trip to start chemotherapy,they divorced. His mommy had a one-eyed baby on chemotherapy  who vomited repeatedly all over her every night and she also had morning sickness so needless to say we had many adventures in "VomitLand!" And now she was divorced with an ex-husband in a far away state. (I still love him. Life is just very difficult sometimes and mommies and daddies who are that young should never have to face something that huge so early in a marriage.)

How do you tell a 26 month old that the doctor is going to take his eye out and when he wakes up that he will hurt.(You don't tell him because there are no words to make him understand.)

 What do you tell him when he stands in front of the mirror for the first time screaming in terror at his own reflection and cries out "I'm a MONSTER!" and then runs away in fear from what is looking back at him? (You cry and you tell him that he is BEAUTIFUL!)

 What do you say when he cries and tells you to make people stop staring at him?

 How do you keep his mommy from going over there and punching them? Well, let me tell you what you do.You realize that you and your daughter have been guilty on more than one occasion of staring at someone and  you take the angel boy by his sweet little hand and you walk over to the person or people who are pointing or whispering and staring or even giggling and you say to the little boy in a quiet and friendly voice,"Tell them what happened to your eye." You train him to say, "I had cancer so the doctor had to take my eye out but it's okay because when Jesus comes again, he's going to give me another eye." What would your reaction be to a two year old who was able to look you in the eye and smile and say that? He soon realized that people were just curious and most of them weren't really wanting to be mean (occasionally there were a few who were mean) and he learned how to deal with his new reality..........

Sometimes you can survive the things that at the time you thought were unbearable!

We met many at St Jude's Hospital who were going through so much worse. We learned that no matter what problems we may have there will always be someone who is suffering far worse pain than we are.

Hair will grow back after chemotherapy! And you can get a prosthetic until Jesus gives you what you are missing!

Life will go on but only you can find the joy in it.

 God does hear and answer prayers! He got a sister six days before his 3rd birthday! And look, his hair had just grown back!

Why do we stare at people who are missing a leg, an arm or an eye? Why do we stare at people who have too many tattoos or piercings? Why do we stare? Maybe it's because we are made in the image of God and when part of that image is marred or missing it startles us because we unconsciously think of  it as "abnormal" or "imperfect" like a church with graffiti spray-painted on it. I'm not bashing anyone for staring. I still do it myself,but really, why do we do it? Don't we realize that we are all children of God? Don't we realize that God likes his children to all be unique and "colorful"? Ain't God Awesome?!!!!! ( yeah, I know "Ain't" isn't correct but Ain't God AWESOME?)  He loves all his children! He loves his black ones, his white ones,red ones, yellow ones,  his brown ones and his green ones! (Okay so maybe there aren't too many green ones in most neighborhoods but what difference does it make what color we are anyway?)  He loves his good ones and his bad ones!

In God's eyes, we are all brothers and sisters and his children so why can't we get along and just accept each others differences. Why can't we love what is on the inside and stop staring at what is wrong on the outside? God loves us just the way we look. Why can't we? He loves all his children.

 He loves his one eyed ones and his two eyed ones! So do I!

 Why do we stare? Because we fear what we do not understand. We just need a little child to take us by the hand and smile and look us right in the eye and say "It's okay. Jesus loves even his mean ones and when He comes again, he'll fix you too!"  ;)

Adversity may be painful but it makes us stronger if we endure it well! All sorrow and pain can be overcome when you know that you can do all things with Christ. Life can be hard but these hard times do pass and you can survive.Trust in Him and have NO FEAR!

This is what COURAGE looks like to me:

When he was 2 years old, the doctors at St Jude's Hospital measured his bones as part of their research and have predicted that he will be 7' 2" when he is grown. His father is 6' 7". So far,at age 14, Grandson #1 is 6'2" and weighs 245lbs. ! The nurses at the hospital say that the doctors there don't usually miss their predictions by much so I can't wait to see this boy grow!

Grandson #1 will always be a hero in my eyes!!!!