One Year Celebration

Many have seen the stories on the local Fox News of Noah’s triumph over adversity. The reporters and cameramen did such a great job with them. We have received many comments and blessings from viewers since the stories aired. The only inaccuracy in those reports was that Noah’s parents had once thought that he might not make it. I can’t say what Maria felt during the hard times, but I was always optimistic that we would all pull through. Before Noah was born, we had been built up with a lot of confidence in the staff at Duke but that’s not what carried the day in overcoming my thoughts of a world without Noah. On the night of Noah’s birthday, he was baptized and that’s when I realized that we were all going to make it through.

I’ve never felt comfortable enough to share my account of Noah’s baptism and the resulting optimism I got from it with anyone for two reasons. The first reason is that I’ve been accused of provoking bad luck by predicting good fortunes before they arrive. Whenever I would get excited as good news was passed on to me about Noah’s condition, Maria frequently warned me, "Don’t jinx it!" We both saw first-hand that there was going to be a step back for every few steps forward and some of the set-backs were quite harsh. So, I never would have made the prediction that we’d be celebrating Noah’s first birthday today, but I always felt like we would be.

The second reason I’ve never wanted to share this part of me is because I don’t want people thinking I’m a nut. You see, some time before Noah was born I read the accounts of a Jedi Master who apprehensively told everyone who subscribed to his daily letters that he felt the presence of angels when he would go visit his mother in a rest home. It was a risky thing to put out there, I thought, as I was a little too skeptical to believe in angels or most things that cannot be scientifically proven. But when the priest came to the hospital on the night Noah was born and baptized him in a simple ceremony using a washcloth that had been moistened with tap water, I felt the same presence that the Jedi Master had described. It were as if God himself had sent one of his best angels down to watch over Noah and that angel was letting me know that he was there!

Of all the time I spend in the hospital with Noah, that is the most vivid memory I have. I reflected upon it many times when Noah’s health had taken a bad turn and feel that it’s the reason I never felt that this one year anniversary of my son’s birth would be anything other than a celebration of triumph.