A Little Girl Talk

You just have to go see this short video. I'd put it up here, but I am technically challenged. Anyway, I loved it and I just love babies!

http://www.snotr.com/video/2630


Okay, now that being said, I have another thought to share with y'all. "My Honey" and I went to the professional quilter to have a bunch of quilt tops quilted. I had been fairly prolific while in Florida during the winter and will never have enough time in this world to get them quilted, so over the river and through the woods to Lisa's house we went.
Along the winding Maumee River Road was a beautiful parcel of land that had been occupied as The Children's Services Board for many, many years. The social workers handled difficult family problems, orphans and housed children who were too physically handicapped to be cared for in their own homes. Our little granddaughter, Courtney, lived there for about a year while awaiting a bed in The Sunshine Home. She had been born missing most of her brain and was expected to live about two years. My daughter and son-in-law cared for her at home for five years through seizures, vomiting nightly while being fed by the machine, surgeries and hospitalizations. Friends and family learned to do infant CPR, handle Apnea machines, G-tube feedings and many other nursing procedures, so our daughter and her husband could both work to pay her medical bills. They lived with us for about eighteen months to save money for a house and gain another nurse to help with Courtney. We even learned to change her G-tube at home....I would pull out the old one, the baby would cry and hold her breath...then pass out and my daughter would pop in the new one. Life was not easy. To our knowledge, she could not see or hear, roll over or sit up. She had to be fed with an eye dropper until they put in the G-tube and then she was fed by a machine for the next nine years until God took her home. The people in this ICU took marvelous care of her in the old fashioned brick buildings. The acreage was a beautiful place to visit along the river. Then the city became typical hogs and decided that they needed that property to build condos and make money for their bloated coffers. So in a snap of their fingers, this beautiful setting for the handicapped children, the orphans and the parents of troubled teens... the city usurped the property and it was bulldozed for the almighty buck progress. To heck with the children!
Toledo is now in a downward spiral as an automotive adjunct to Detroit and that property along the river is sitting there with a few big, fat cat houses, but most is going begging for want of rich folks to purchase lots with a fantastic view. Somehow, it really bothers me when an institution that did so much good has been taken over and forgotten.... except for the occasional grandmother, who happens along the road and remembers how wonderful it was for her little granddaughter.

June 1, 2009---Addendum
Today, Courtney would have been twenty-five. We put a tiny pot of pink roses on her grave. No child ever lives in vain. We learned a great deal about love and the value of life from her.