As I writes these words, little Meher is on her way home after her second surgery. She now looks like any tiny girl and not the little ET she had been for the past three months with her huge expanders. Meher will now look just like any other 4 year old, barring a a few scars and her odd looking hands. Since her first surgery that took place a few months ago she has been living at the women centre and has walked into many hearts. Needless to say she is a true free spirit imbibed with a rare zest for life.
I still remember the day she walked into my life and my heart. I knew she had come to stay. I must confess that we were all a little taken aback by the attitude of her parents and their total lack of concern for this child. Every morning she was let out of their tiny home and left to her won device. It all seemed as if everyone wanted to wish hear away but did not quite know how. We were appalled at the lack of interest of her parents in her treatment; her mom even left her two months ago to go to the village where her baby brother was born. For the past months she was cared for by the women centre staff and every night one of the teachers spent the night with her. She enthralled every one with her antics. No one escaped her special brand of love.
For her parents she was an impediment, a burden no one wanted to carry. With her scars and her maimed hands she would never be marriage material, and was marriage not the ultimate goal of a girl’s life? But Meher is a live wire, someone you cannot ignore. She will not let you do that. Her joie de vivre is infectious and she has the ability to lift your spirits, no matter how low they are.
She has been given a new lease of life, and knowing her, she will make sure she lives life to its fullest and prove to everyone that she is worth believing in. If all goes well, she will join the little band of pwhy children in boarding school and I have no doubt that she will astound us all. Meher is a child of the God of lesser beings, just like her special pal and soul mate Utpal. They are children who have come a long way and know that life is precious.
May The God of lesser beings always walk with them!