Baby Kyleigh
10/2006 - Tears welled in my eyes, as we drove up to the school to see the new Afghan sign.
…Little did the Afghan children know that "Baby Kyleigh" was baptized in her incubator at 12 days old, as she was not expected to live. She was given a spinal tap and an intravenous tube was inserted into the soft spot of her tiny little head. The nurses at Marin General Hospital consoled me in May 1987, as they prepared me for the stark reality that Kyleigh was not expected to survive. Such heartbreak may only be understood in the heart of a mother —perhaps another mother who may hold a child weighing only eight pounds—and has crawled onto a landmine short-fusing the gift of life. The scales of justice, where eight pounds represents the weight of a newborn child or the ability to detonate a landmine.
Not only did Kyleigh live to survive the ordeal of pain, but she lived to save the lives of hundreds of Afghan children whose names she may never know…
“Tashakor, Kyleigh”…for while your mother is in Kabul, Afghanistan, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done for other children around the world.
