Grace

Each morning starts the same. I head down to the kitchen at 6:30 am, put a corn muffin in the toaster and make a cup of coffee.

Drinking my coffee, I open the NY Times on my iPod, scan the headlines and close the device with sadness, and more than a twinge of horror and disgust.

At these times I find myself hearing Don Henley singing these words from “The Heart of the Matter” in my head:

We all need a little tenderness

How can love survive

In such a graceless age?

The world, our world is in need of grace. Thus, I share my thoughts about a friend who has lived a life of grace and is a man of grace. For now, we will call him M.

I first met M in September 1977. We were both on our way to the to begin our first year’s field placement (internship) as part of our social work studies. I liked M immediately, enjoying his droll New York sense of humor.

Each of us had experienced loss—his younger sister and my father. If not framing our lives, these losses caused us to view life through a different lens, perhaps gray-tinted.

Upon graduation, M headed out west, where he met his wife, and I stayed in New York and met Jo.

Mt wife and I welcomed our first daughter, in 1983—a beautiful baby with a head of black hair and a perfectly proportioned 7 pounds and 11 ounces little body. M traveled from his new home in Long Island to attend the baby naming. Our second child was born three and a half years later. She was small (6 pounds, 3 ounces), yellow from jaundice, but otherwise, as far as we were concerned, perfect.

Soon after, M’s wife gave birth to an infant with severe microcephaly. It was evident that she would be profoundly disabled for the breadth of her life. Living within the bubble of our charmed family life with two beautiful daughters, I could not begin to comprehend M’s heartache. Three years later, our two-year-old son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, and their heartache became mine.

For the last 34 years, raising these two children has been a defining element of both M’s and my life, and a core component of our frequent phone calls. We have learned to bear witness to each other’s pain without the need to resort to empty platitudes.

With remarkable devotion, compassion and commitment, and against all odds, M and his wife have cared for their daughter in their home for 35 years—far beyond the life expectancy of those with profound microcephaly. They have rescued her in the middle of the night hundreds of times when she suffered seizures. It has been increasingly difficult to find and engage qualified nighttime nursing support, causing them both to be constantly sleep deprived. Two years ago, their daughter was diagnosed with a form of lymphoma, and M and his wife worked with a team of physicians to slow the progression of the disease.

Through all this, M speaks of the joy of being his daughter’s father—the sweetness of her smile, the purity of her soul.

Several years ago, M asked me to suggest a Hebrew name for his daughter. The answer occurred to me almost immediately: “Simcha”—Hebrew for “Joy.” M enthusiastically agreed. Through these struggles, challenges, and hardships and a life of remarkable devotion, M has both witnessed and embodied the sweetness, the beauty, and deep meaning of life… a life filled and lived with joy, love, and grace.

At a time when so many of those who lead our nations do so with callousness and cruelty let us seek those with grace among us and nurture the grace within us.

We must fight for the rights of all people to live freely and safely. But let our strength be accompanied by and guided by grace.

We all need a little tenderness.