The Spirit of a Child
By Eric Thompson
What is the miracle that is a child? I was a child once, and on days where the ornery codgers swap lies and bristle with each other, I suppose I still am. I don't remember being adorable, precious or any of those things that abandoned me when puberty invaded. Most of all, I don't remember being a miracle.
Yet, there is perhaps no more valuable resource for pertinent
knowledge and far-reaching truth than that which is child. It's
something in the way they can make a stuffed tiger with one button
eye seem alive and loved. It's the skill they possess to make
a perfectly inhabitable house out of couch cushions and a few
blankets. It's the naive questions they ask that you know the
answer to but don't know the answer to. It's catching bugs. It's
making mud pies. In short, it's just being a kid.
The doctors said that Bradley Jolley would never live to know
what happened to him. Forty-five percent of his body was covered
in third degree burns and the rest-well, the rest was dying from
fear and pain. He had been life-flighted from his home in Lovell,
Wyoming, to the burn treatment center in Salt Lake City where
emergency staff rushed to save the life of what would inevitably
be another statistic. When they tried to cut away his clothing
to apply urgent care, they found much of it melted into his skin.
Bradley was only 7 years old, and tragically, he was a victim
of nothing more than his own childish curiosity. He had been playing
with matches by his house when a gas can exploded, engulfing him
in flames. His sister, Lana, had been on the phone when she heard
the screaming. She rushed out with a blanket and smothered the
flames. But the fire burned and burned.
And burned.
The doctors said it was a miracle. There hadn't been many miracles
like that in this family. It seemed someone was always dying young
from some disease or accident, and when it seemed that fate had
dealt the most fatal hand of all, the miracle came through. Maybe
it was faithful prayer, or the love and contributions of concerned
community members. The family seems content to give credit to
the perennial giver of miracles; that being the good Lord and
his good will. More than likely, it was a harmonious combination
of the three that inexplicably saved Bradley Jolley's life. Nothing
bonds people like necessity, and the Jolleys and their extended
family hugged and drew breath. What the miracle didn't save was
his skin, or his pleasant dreams, or that aforementioned something
that made him a child. It seemed that the occurrence of one miracle
had brought about the need for more. Bradley was alive and nothing
more.
Red balloons sent him into a panic. The sight of any warm color
set him trembling with fear and remembered pain. The fire had
burned more than just skin. Many muscles and tissues were rendered
nearly useless, having been burnt away or deadened. Skin was grafted
as doctors began the laborious process of reconstructing a little
boy. In order for the grafts to be of any use, he was ordered
to undergo agonizing stretching exercises, something that we who
stretch muscle instead of scar tissue can't truly comprehend;
hours and days and weeks and months of excruciating pain for the
sake of easing pain. He begged his mom to stop. With tears in
her eyes, she refused. Some miracle.
And indeed, it was.
It wasn't long after the accident, after the danger of death had
subsided enough to bring fruitful sleep back to the Jolley family,
that 7-year-old Bradley told his mom about the time that he had
died. He told her how he watched as the doctors worked feverishly
to save his life. He told her how he left and played with his
grandpa's brother in the clouds (a boy who had died at the same
age over half a century earlier). He told her how he met Jesus,
who played with him and talked with him and eventually told him
that he had to go back. He didn't want to come back, but his mother
was calling him, and according to Jesus, there was more for him
to do.
According to a national association of atheists, represented by
one of their leadership, the experience was somewhere between
a pleasant dream and a childish scheme. Their opinion was broadcast
before a live studio audience on national television as a part
of the craze of syndicated talk shows. Bradley was there with
his mom, the one to whom the account had been given in child-like
confidentiality. She had told the story to friends and family
as the confirmation of a good return on a demanding investment
of faith on all their parts. Never did she expect her little boy
to be invited to share his near-death experience with all of America.
The miracles were called into question. Reasonable men reasoned
away as defensive men defended, and in the wake of their cries
and convictions, eight year-old Bradley Jolley sat in awkward
silence-a little boy from Wyoming who, one day, nearly killed
himself doing what he was best at being a kid.
"Bradley? These men don't believe you," she said,
"They say that what you said never happened, that you imagined
it all. What do you think about that?"
And on that day, though America watched, they probably never considered,
that the greatest miracle in Bradley Jolley's life occurred right
in front of their eyes. It's the greatest miracle in anyone's
life, and save perhaps a scant few, it is the universal miracle
of everyone's life the miracle that is a child.
Bradley shrugged his shoulders and opened his oddly puckered mouth
and said, "I don't care what they think."
Applause erupted. Somewhere, a button-eyed tiger fluffed the couch
cushions and got out extra blankets and mudpies. The flames had
burned the body, but not the spirit of the boy. The doctors had
been wrong. Life wasn't a miracle for Bradley Jolley. Bradley
Jolley was a miracle for life.