After reading this excellent post by Sheila, and then viewing the video she references, I was reminded of a family event in 1994 in which spontaneous joy broke out. Sometimes spontaneous joy occurs on stage, sometimes it occurs over a good bottle of wine, and sometimes it occurs during the mundane moments of life in a person’s living room. This particular event occurred in my sister’s living room.
But let me back up a little. My niece was born with cerebral palsy in her lower extremities. She’s had so many corrective surgeries that I can’t even tell you how many she’s had—somewhere in the neighborhood of nine. She’s 16 now, at the time of the incident I’m about to describe, she was four. She’d never been able to walk—partially because her lower extremities were always in a cast (because of all the surgeries) and partially because her cerebral palsy just wouldn’t allow her to.
My sister, her boyfriend, my grandmother, and I were all sitting around in my sister’s living room one day close to Thanksgiving in 1994. My niece was almost fully recovered from her latest surgery, when all of a sudden, she pulled herself up by bracing herself on the coffee table and she walked several steps in the pathway between the table and the couch. Four sets of eyes got so big that they almost filled the room. She just giggled.
“Do it again!” all of us screamed in unison.
She turned around and did it again. Followed by more giggles.
The tears came for the four of us quickly and they wouldn’t stop.
“Do it again!”
And she did.
More giggles and more tears.
“Do it again!”
And she did.
More giggles and more tears.
I have no idea how many times she walked for us, but it looked just as awesome to us each time she did it. And each time, the tears came. A spontaneous moment of joy that meant more to me than any almost other moment I can think of in my entire life. I wasn’t moved to tears solely because she was walking, but also because for a couple of minutes, she got to experience what it felt like to be like everybody else she knew. And something about her giggle just thrilled me.
She eventually started using a little walker to get around, but after several more surgeries, she was unable to continuing walking. We’ve had many great moments since then—one of which maybe I’ll share with you in another post. For it’s moments like these that make life so enjoyable.
