Sights Unseen, Voices Unspoken

This week I witnessed a miracle. After a backyard devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024, after a fence reduced to matchsticks and fifteen trees downed by the wind, after bulldozers and bobcats reduced our yard to mud and bare ground, after crews with chainsaws and axes cut and dragged trees, bushes, and grass …

after all that …

this week our daffodils bloomed.

They bloomed next to a stump of a massive tree that was felled by the hurricane, under which stands the statue of St. Francis, the only thing left standing in our backyard after the hurricane passed through our area.

Daffodils. Planted by Joe’s mother almost twenty years ago and which have bloomed every year since.

Daffodils. A reminder that what we see is not always the whole story, for despite the wreckage that we could see, there was something else happening … there … just underground … waiting for the right moment to emerge.

The daffodils also reminded me of my sweet nephew, Peter, and his journey with autism. For the first 16 years of his life Peter was completely nonverbal, but two years ago his parents introduced him to Spelling to Communicate, a method which espouses presumed competence; that is, presuming that all nonverbals already have the ability to spell. Suddenly, after 16 years of silence, Peter’s voice was heard through spelling.

It has been a beautiful thing to witness, and this week Peter completed his first high school course (which included studying Shakespeare’s MacBeth).

Since then, Peter’s parents (my sister and brother-in-law) have tried to introduce this communication method to others. They have sponsored several events at their church in Columbia whereby they bring in a trained therapist to come and work with families. Just yesterday, a young man with autism communicated for the first time, proving that he had a voice … that he was IN THERE. And after 31 years of silence, his family heard his “voice” for the first time.

Like a daffodil emerging from the earth, the Peter we thought we knew was not the whole story. There was so much more.

And although sometimes the whole story is hidden, or buried, or misunderstood, with time, patience, and faith, that which is hidden, buried, or misunderstood can (and will!) bloom ...

with miracles to witness and voices that sing.