Worth the Life

This is a true story.

Early summer came packed full of unpredictable Wisconsin weather, and children laughing on the school playground expecting Wisconsin’s best.

A young 13 year old girl slid down the slides, and then eagerly raced back up the gym to slide down again.

“Kimberly! Race ya!”

Kimberly, one of Jordan’s classmates, flew into action. In the endless way kids race, she slid down the slides after Jordan and then scurried just as quickly back to the same slide.
It was the last day of school, and Jordan’s school was spending it at the park, where children went crazy with the idea that they could no longer get in trouble. It was the typical end-of-the- year feel, and the teachers were on the watch for the little begin-the-summer-fights that could spring up without warning.

Kimberly stood behind Jordan, as they waited their turn in line.

“Come on, come on. Hurry up,” one kid urged.

Finally it was their turn, and Jordan flew down the slide, and tumbled to the ground.

Kimberly flew after her and stood easily.

“Come on, Jordan. Let’s go. Race ya.”

Jordan didn’t move. She lay face down, crumpled on the playground woodchips.

“Jordan?” Kimberly’s eyes widened. “ Teacher! Miss Gray! “

One of the teachers came from out of nowhere and said calmly, “What is it, Kimberly?”

Kim pointed to Jordan and said, “I think Jordan’s hurt. She won’t get up.”

The teacher gasped, hurrying over to Jordan’s side and flipped her over. Jordan’s face was turning blue. Shaking the girl, she yelled, “Someone call an ambulance!”. It was because she performed CPR constantly until the ambulance arrived, that Jordan lived.
-------------------------------------------------------

Pat helped her out of the car.
“Okay, one step at a time. We can take it slowly.”

The 17 year old girl tried to smile at her grandmother, and it warmed Pat’s heart to see the faint effort. Pat wasn’t talking to her grand daughter, Jordan, though. She was talking to her daughter-in-law, Deana, who was pushing her daughter, Jordan’s wheelchair. Jordan couldn’t walk. She hadn’t been able to ever since she collapsed on the school playground right after her 13th birthday.

It took them five minutes to maneuver the wheel chair safely to the ground, and they were breathing heavily by the time they did. Jordan wasn’t as light as she used to be.

Fifteen minutes later, they were in the house, after waving to the respective neighbors, and shutting the humid summer heat behind them.

Pat set down her keys and slipped from tennis shoes to slippers, as Deana began to loosen Jordan’s protective straps. Jordan’s head jerked from side to side and Deana wiped the drool from her chin. Once a normal little girl, Jordan’s brain damaging heart failure left her in a vegetative state. Her mother sometimes had to look very closely to see any of the old Jordan sparkle in her eyes.

Pat, known to kids around the neighborhood as Grandma Pat, knelt and smiled at Jordan. Jordan looked at her for a minute, her eyes finally rolling to a resting point. Suddenly Jordan smiled.

It wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t quite all of the old Jordan smile, but it was enough to make Pat stand and call Deana’s attention to it.
“Did you see that? Did you see Jordan smile?”

Little tears sparked in Deana’s eyes as she smiled with her hands on her hips and nodded.
“Okay, so I’ll come and pick her up around 6?”

Pat nodded at Deana with a smile. “Sounds good.”

As soon as Terry left, Pat began really talking to Jordan.
“You’re in there. You really are, aren’t you, Jordan? You know this is me. This is Grandma. Can you say, ‘Grandma’?”

These words were much like the ones the family had used, gathered around Jordan’s bed in ICU, where she stayed in a coma for over a year. Prayers were flown in from all over the country. Neighbors and friends came to visit her, some even singing her favorite childhood Bible songs to her. Her classmates at school, and her neighborhood friends, just couldn’t understand where Jordan had gone.

I remember watching my neighbors from my living room window, thinking as a thirteen year old who used to play dolls with Jordan, that maybe there was a key to unlock her and stimulate her back to a miraculous recovery. The faith I had that God could heal Jordan, I’m sure, made my parents struggle to come up with answers. I have no doubt that Jordan’s younger sister, Lauren, asked many of the same questions I wanted to ask.

“Will Jordan be coming back to school next year? Will Jordan and I still play dress-up at Grandma’s? What will happen to Jordan’s friends? Will Jordan still race me at the park? Can I still be the maid of honor at Jordan’s wedding?”

It’s been about 4 years now, since Jordan’s heart stopped and she was brought back to life by the steady CPR of one of her school teachers. Since that time, the family has stuck by Jordan’s side, paying endless medical bills, and battling to keep around-the-clock nurses employed who will care for Jordan.

Whether the hard work has been worth it, well, all it takes is for Pat to look in those dark eyes of Jordan and stroke her brown hair her from her forehead. The child is still in her, straining, but still smiling.

Sometimes things completely beyond our control spin dangerously out-of-control. Jordan had had a physical only a week before she dropped from (as the doctor’s have diagnosed) QT syndrome. That last physical before her fall had diagnosed her as a normal, healthy girl. There was no planning for what had happened, no predicting, no going back and changing. And really, there are no answers for why these things happen, except that God had a different plan in mind than man had.

Hundreds of families across the nation deal with special-needs children, many of them not asking for the hard task. But they stick to it, because it is worth it to see those simple smiles. They protect the innocent life of a child, not because they are perfect, but because even though they are not perfect, they are a part of them, and they still love them.