Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: POUND (07/15/21)
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TITLE: Charlene | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Champion
07/19/21 -
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The child’s mother, Marietta, almost died during the C-Section but was recovering nicely. She wanted to see her first-born; she needed to see the little girl that she and her husband, Charles named Charlene. Due to Charlene’s size, she was wrought with health issues so it would be four weeks before Marietta’s request to see her was granted.
The day Marietta and Charles got to see their daughter was one of mixed emotions. As the nurse drew back the nursery window curtain, they caught a glimpse of Charlene in an incubator.
Marietta gasped, “Can I hold her?”
The nurse allowed Marietta and Charles to come inside. At this point, it had been a month and Charlene had gained a little weight. She was still hooked up to tubes and hoses but was strong.
The nurse reached out and took Marietta’s hand and held it. It was shaking. She turned it over to where the palm was facing upward and then looked into the mother’s eyes.
“I am going to put Charlene into your hand so you can hold her, ok?” The nurse was as gentle with the parents as she was the baby.
Marietta nodded and looked at Charles. Tears were streaming down his face as watched the nurse lift the tiny baby out of the incubator and place it lovingly in his wife’s open hand.
Charlene’s feet barely touched her mother’s wrist and her head, with wisps of brown hair rested on the index finger.
Charles wanted to touch his daughter who was barely bigger than a deck of playing cards, but his hands were rough from work, and he was scared he would hurt her. She looked so delicate and fragile. The nurse, sensing this, took his hand and smiled at him.
He reached out to stroke Charlene’s back with his finger. She did not have on a diaper because diapers that tiny did not exist.
“She’s a fighter, isn’t she?” He told the nurse.
“Oh, yes, this little girl is going to take on the world one day.” The nurse lifted Charlene from Marietta’s hand and put her back under the warm light of the incubator.
She then went on to explain that Charlene would need to gain more weight before she could come home. When she was born, she weighed only sixteen ounces. Before she could leave the hospital, she would need to weigh at least sixty. On the day of their visit, the little girl weighed in at just thirty-two ounces.
The nurses and doctors did not know if Charlene would even survive and neither did Charles and Marietta. But God. Only God knew that sixty-one years later, Charlene would be grown with children and grandchildren of her own. Only He knew she would hold Marietta’s hand as she slipped peacefully into God’s kingdom in the same hospital with her family surrounding her. The wrinkled hand of her mother who decades before had held her entire body in her palm was now limp. Charlene set it gently on the bed as tears ran down her cheeks. Her father, Charles had died two years before and now Charlene felt suddenly very alone despite having her own extended family there.
Charlene’s granddaughter, Salena took her hand and looked up at her, “Granny, can we go see the babies on the way out?”
Anytime, they came to the hospital, they had to stop on the way out and see the newborns. This time though it was different. As Charlene stood in the window looking at the babies, she saw one in the back of the room hooked up with tubes. It was so tiny. Above it was a framed news article. Charlene put on her glasses and saw that it was an article about her parents. There was photo of them holding her and the headline read, ‘Parents Take Home Tuscaloosa’s Tiniest Baby’.
Charlene realized she was able to see both of her parents off to their eternal home and that one day, she would see them again.
She was reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis, “Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad.”
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