During my walk, I found this orange bush in the centre of the garden in front of a house, yielding many fruits.
A garden is the home for flower and fruit bearing plants.
They become their purpose by receiving all that it needs form the soil and air.
From the experience that Anna and I have had in developing green patches in front of our houses in four different places over the last thirty years, we have come to believe that plants too face adversities of all sorts. We have lost some plants for reasons not known to us. Only when they show signs of withering and later dry up, we sense that they ceased to grow. Rarely we have been able to save plants, who showed early signs of loosing their lustre.
The wise person who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, had something insightful to say about sowing and planting. 'Sow your seed in the morning, and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed or whether both of them alike will be good' (Eccl.11:6).
I am coming closer to step back from fifty years of my professional involvement, out of which forty years have been with families who have had neuro-developmentally challenged children. Parents come with different levels of openness and receptive attitude. A good number of them were in the cycle of grief, which made it difficult for them to shift their focus from their loss to view the prospects of their child.
I have had this dilemma in the early years of my professional involvement with such parents. How much to invest in them, when their readiness to receive was yet to come. The slogan, 'stay with those who stay, walk with those who walk and run with those who run' came out of our consciousness of the different stages of readiness of families.
A family, whose child did exceptionally well, inspite of the special needs and is now well known for the different abilities and performing skills, sent a message and summary of child's achievements a few days ago. Reading through the array of achievements and the international acclaim this young adult and family received, I looked back at the several contacts we have had with the family from six months till the early school years of this child. Then the family moved on to live and work overseas. That family was ready to run exploring opportunities and avenues for their child. They took their child to a life of abundance of opportunities.
As against this child, I know of another family, whose child is in a similar age now, grew up with many developmental prospects, but number of co-morbidities and adverse domestic circumstances limited the child to access all opportunities. This child needs medical attention to modify the behaviour, sleep dysfunction, mood disorder and episodic outbursts of anxious reactions. This family was struggling all along and I feel good that we were able to keep pace with them to some extent. Often the family needed support as much as the child. Their motivation and availability did not impress me, inspite of a second mile attitude towards them. They almost chose to stay and preferred to feel frozen.
Between these two ends of the spectrum, one family ready to run after opportunities and another family only able to stay, there were many other families who were ready to walk! One such family whom I got to know, who were steadfastly focussed on supporting their child with multiple developmental needs, although financially limited, changed the prospects of their child. All that they could afford to give the child was an opportunity to study in a state school, but in an ambience having been well cared by the mindful teachers. This child is making progress in communication and cognitive skills. The state supported developmental therapy is available to the child at school. What made the child make progress was parental readiness and consistency to believe in the developmental prospects of their child.
The parental readiness had these three styles- outgoing readiness, supportive, and staying frozen!
It is in to such a spectrum of receptivity, we are called to sow and plant.
As I prepare to draw to a close my professional involvements, I have a sense of gladness for having been in this speciality of Child Development. It brought me close to a section of parents who live reduced lives because of the limitations in their children to fulfil the parental aspirations. The children too have a life long struggles, as some clinical conditions are not fully responsive to treatment or therapy.
I have had my moody moments, when I felt that I was walking through the valley experiences of discomfort and disappointments. This specialty of child development brought me face to face with diversity of medical conditions which made children suffer from limitations and pushed families to a languishing journey.
That is why I feel drawn by symbols like this small orange bush with several oranges. Life is not just an encounter with disappointments but a celebration of abundance of gifts of love and given opportunities to work by serving!
When one sows and plants in the morning and evening, the prospects of fruits are likely to be more.
So I find strength in what I found as a message of hope: 'Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things (Eccles.11:5).
Life is colourful ! The optic to view life is through a mystical perspective!
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