His Gifts: Poem and Painting

I wrote the following poem about my son, Lew, when he was nine.  He and his family were in the middle of a very difficult year.  He had four hospitalizations for three different life-threatening conditions that year and the next year he went to live in the Pediatric Convalescent Care Center at The Home of the Innocents in Louisville, Kentucky.

Three years later I painted this painting.  I had it complete except that the yellow tabletop was empty.  "Why," I asked myself, "did I leave that table empty?  I've created this huge focal point and I don't have a clue what goes there..."  It sat empty like that for at least three months.  One day I was seated in front of it and remembered this poem:

His Gifts

I have a first-born son
Who is severely disabled
But he brings great gifts to me.

He brings to my life
Sweetness.
He looks at me.
He fully accepts me as I am.
He knows what love is
And because of him
I do, too.

He brings to my life
Focus.
He points my life in new directions.
He opens doors I hadn't seen.
I cannot heal my son
But I can look where he points.
I can go through doors he opens
And I do.

He brings to my life
A new pace.
Because of him I walk more slowly.
I walk more humanly in a fallen world.

My son brings to my life
An abundance of God's grace.
He is a means of grace to me.
He makes me more aware of my blessings.
He will not let me ignore the grief of others.

All of these gifts I would gladly exchange
For a whole son
but that is not mine to choose.

I may choose to thank God
And my son
and I do.

---Cherry Winkle Moore
    1990


The three gifts represent Sweetness, Focus and Pace.  The Lilies represent God's grace: a family centered in and surrounded by God's grace.