What Can Be Said 009

a>

It’s a funny thing about a child’s perception. As time was passing and I was trying to adjust to all that had happened, I was asked a question. I was asked where I wanted to spend my time in rehab, as that Hospital was a Teaching Hospital and did not offer the kind of rehabilitation I was going to need. I was told there was a great Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville. But that really didn’t sink in. All I could think of was going back to Maine. My mind processed it as going back in time. Erasing the last few months and pretending it never happened. So I said I wanted to return to Maine but in my mind I wasn’t going into another Hospital I was going home, back to what I had left behind.

Since I had been hospitalized there had been several News articles written about myself and that accident. Many of the reported things about me were only partially correct. There were rumors that I had died, that I would be paralyzed from the neck down and such things as that. When Christmas came there had been a rather large article called, “Home for Christmas” and the challenges we would face in doing so. I remember there had been one gentleman who had read the article who offered to fly me home in a private plane, and one of the nurses that cared for me offered to fly up with my Mother and me to help insure a safe trip.

The News Paper, (The Inverness Chronicle) had also wrote about the rather large sum of money it would take to make such a journey. They had asked the public to help make that Christmas one I would remember. There was also a woman who’s name was Lee Blair, who had been there from the start. I had no idea who this lady was, only that she was a dear Christian woman who wanted to help. I still don’t know who she was or where she came from. Only that she was a tremendous blessing sent from God. It was she that had collected all the donations from all the people in this area who chose to help a Mother and her son.


As it turned out we didn’t need the nurse of the private plane for the trip. I don’t remember why we ended up on a regular commercial flight after all the concerned comments about the dangers. I can tell you this though, I was quite a sight! My left leg in a cast up to the hip, a body cast that went from my waist to my neck and sporting the latest fashion in neck traction! Not one person passing by could resist looking at me and of course, I had to be seated in the very front row from easy access.

It is easy to look back now and smile about it or to make fun of the situation, but at the time I felt as though I belonged in the circus. As odd as it may seem, I think it was the looks from the children that helped to adjust to being looked at all the time. Or worst yet, to be looked at and see a quickly turning head as I look back at them. However, with children it was different; kids don’t quickly turn away before you can make eye contact. And it gave me a chance to smile at them and to see them occasionally smile back. Kids are very open and honest with their questions or comments. But they never judge you by what you look like. Adults seem for the most part to have forgotten how to do that. They think its rude behavior or impolite, at least after they get caught looking at what obviously seemed odd or different to them.

It isn’t my intention to put other adults down, but only to express that children have something that we adults have forgotten. Perhaps that’s why they are so important to Christ, and why He says we must become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
Matthew 18:3 “and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.


Once we got to Maine we landed at the Bangor (ban gor) not (ban ger) International Airport and was shuttled in an ambulance right back to another hospital. And here I would spend the next six months before getting to go home. Only, it wasn’t going to be the home I remembered. Continued…