my niece Mikhaela

dances ballet, sings sweeter than an early-morning bird, and climbs made-up mountains of walls with screwed-in rocks


Michaela is the angel-child of my good friend Brenda, and for the difference of the "C" and a "K", i could most definitely say
(despite the age-gap of 6 or so plus years)
that both are equally gorgeous in every way.


But Michaela was born with `spina bifida', and it made her spine go all nuts, so that
her legs don't work
and the doctors had to open her up and with knives and other curiously cruel implements of healing
make other things a little bit better for her battered little baby body


i tried hard not to let tears fall when first i saw her
then realized i didn't have to cry
and i almost laughed out loud in the sheer joy of the relief of it
because i saw how and why
despite the misplaced set of knobby bones that pushed up out of the back of her itty-bitty little skull
(picture marbles right under a smooth ball of dough)
in all other accounts

Michaela is indeed a beautiful human being
a baby, yes, a baby still
who with a most indomitable will
lives, and sweetly smiles
and blesses us with the gorgeousness of today with her presence.

whether or not tomorrow comes with her still on this earth
i am grateful to have known her, and held her, and see her smile
because she showed me true beauty
and made me believe once again
how close God is,
when you take the time to look.


i read for other people.
in one turn of the page, the one with Michaela's name on it,
she read for me, this little angel-child,
Brenda's baby.