A Learning Disabled Child experiences: “A piece of True love”

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children,the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.

After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question.
“When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?”

The audience was stilled by the query.The father continued. “I believe,that when a child like Shay comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child.”

Then he told the following story: Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they’ll let me play?”

My New Born Baby Without Ears

“Can I see my baby?” the happy new mother asked. When the bundle was nestled in her arms and she moved the fold of cloth to look upon his tiny face, she gasped. The doctor turned quickly and looked out the tall hospital window.

The baby had been born without ears. Time proved that the baby’s hearing was perfect. It was only his appearance that was marred.

When he rushed home from school one day and flung himself into his mother’s arms, she sighed, knowing that his life was to be a succession of heartbreaks. He blurted out the tragedy. “A boy, a big boy…called me a freak.”

He grew up, handsome for his misfortune. A favorite with his fellow students, he might have been class president, but for that. He developed a gift, a talent for literature. “You might mingle with other young people,” his mother reproved him, but felt a tenderness in her heart.

The boy’s father had a session with the family physician. Could nothing be done?” I believe I could graft on a pair of outer ears, if they could be procured” the doctor decided. Whereupon the search began for a person who would make such a sacrifice for a young man.

I want to be a TV

It’s a beautiful sunny day, Moosa and Fatima, two bubbly and vibrant 5 year old twins, try to draw their parent’s attention to the lovely sandcastles they had been constructing for hours in the garden. Dad is too busy viewing television and replying to emails on his Blackberry mobile while mum has for the last few hours been chatting with her friends and updating her Facebook page. Mum and dad, hardly take notice of their kid’s achievement. Both parents are usually so involved in their work and social environments that they “hardly” get time for their kids.

Apart from the first four weeks  spent with mum after birth both Moosa and Fatima have ever since infancy been inhabitants of a day care centre. In the evenings  mum picks them up on her way back home from office. Dad returns usually late in the evening and both parents barely have time to interact with their kids before its time to sleep and wake-up again.

A strange phenomenon of children with both parents but are “modern day orphans”.  Due to many parents deep engrossment in the material and social environment, they are unable to spend basic and vital time with their children, thus neglecting them and reducing them to the level of “modern day orphans”. Parents are there, but in reality they are not “there”.

Child neglect, very common type of child abuse, is a pattern of failing to provide for a child’s basic needs; it not only relates to lack of food, education and clothing but extends to the child’s emotional and spiritual needs as well as hygiene and supervision. Child neglect is not always easy to spot and the guilty parents are so often oblivious of this syndrome.

The Wooden Bowl

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four year old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. We must do something about grandfather,” said the son. I’ve had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.

So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl. When the family glanced in grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four year old watched it all in silence.