ABIGAIL NEWTON SMITH

Saturday, 6th October 2001 - Special Guest Page

The following was written by my Grandpa for me as his meditation for my continued well being. I hope you like it as much as I do.

ABIGAIL HOPE - A MEDITATION

As I stand beside you, small portion of my own flesh and blood, lying there under the perspex canopy of the clinical cot into which you were placed as soon as you were delivered, your every breath and heartbeat displayed and recorded I am filled with the wonder of your being. I recall the dilemma of the days preceding the date of your birth: too early, and your chance of survival at that stage of your development would have been negligible, too late and both you and our daughter could well have been lost to us; a tiny enigma desired so much by your mother yet unable to carry you any longer because of a cruel incompatibility. But here you are, a tribute to the surgeon’s skill and judgement. And so we came to share some part of your parents’ anxieties and to hope that in some respects we could help to lighten the load - their first experience of parenthood.

How fragile and delicate you seemed to us as we viewed you for the first time, and how diminutive - a doll- sized human being perfectly formed! What sentiments of pity and compassion fill our hearts as we saw you learning to breathe so precociously. The limit of our technology, and yet how crude and disfiguring it appears when connected to the delicacy of nature’s gifts. Forgive us for the necessary pain and discomfort we have caused you, we mean well - we love you.

And yet why did you come to be with us so hastily? Could it be that you have something to tell us - you so recently from the hand of the Creator of us all. You are the twelfth little apostle to join our greater family and eleven times previously I have been renewed by each and every new arrival. Yet never previously one spoken to me so profoundly touching my heart and the very core of my being so that I am close to tears. How can one who has not learnt to breathe, much less talk, communicate so powerfully! You speak to me of helplessness and innocence, of sacrifice and suffering, of fragility and delicacy, tenderness and gentleness, pity, compassion and love. Breathe on the mirror of my soul with each tiny breath that I may wipe it clean to see in it more clearly the Divine image.

Yet do you speak to us all? We had thought you depended on us, but are we not dependent on the message you bring? You came to us just before the Fall, when Big Apples drop from tall trees and are bruised with the impact and we have to pick up the fruit and separate the good from the bad. And we have seen what happens when your message is obscured and distorted in the heart of man. No, your coming was well timed indeed, a hope, a light for our own future.

So speak on little Abigail……. We listen…….We Believe,……. We Hope,…… We Love. Proclaim your message in the villages, in the towns and in the skyscrapers of our civilisation.

Last Updated : 17/10/01.