Harriet Joyce Foundation

Dr. Holmes

Morton

REFLECTIONS (From Croquet 1994)

I have been told that special children are gifts from God. I have been told that special children are punishments from God.

I have heard scientists and doctors refer to these children only in terms of their genetic defects, aloof and with no human insight, as though the life of a child can be reduced to such terms.

My experiences have made me think in a different way about these children and their short, often difficult, lives.

I cannot say why these children come and go upon the Earth but I do know that they change the lives of those who know them.

Such children have been my most important teachers. I have learned more from them than I did from many instructors in Harvard Medical School, who were by reputation great teachers.
These children have reshaped time and again the way I practice medicine, both the science and the art of it.

I have heard sermons by ministers about compassion, I have heard fine lectures about ethics and medicine, but no sermon or lecture has taught me as much as a single special child. These little children can change whole Communities of people in ways that last far beyond their brief lives.

They are not merely the focus of compassion but often are compassion’s very source. Special children enrich the world in ways that many who are blessed with longer lives do not. They have much to give us, to teach us, about themselves and about ourselves. (From the lecture Best of All Colors, a story called “Croquet,” dhm 1996).

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