“I want a friend!” my five-year old’s clear blue eyes showed the pain of rejection. Noah is deaf and the past couple of years have begun to show what the future holds for my little guy.

The first few years of his life Noah had many friends in our neighborhood. Small children don’t talk a heck of a lot and are content to simply play. As time passed and Noah got to the age where speech and hearing were a noticeable part of “hanging out”, the friends started realizing he was different. Soon no one came to play with my tiny son and he too began to understand he was different.

My heart has ached and I have spent endless hours in tears, begging God to send him a friend. “Just one.” I have prayed. “If he just had one buddy, I know he would be happy.” I have prayed this prayer for a very long time and my little son has had to be content with only having friends at the school for the deaf, where he attends pre-school. Noah has lots of friends at school, and they are all deaf like him, so this has been a blessing. But the children at school come from far and wide and none live near enough to “hang out”. It’s not the same when you’re five.

He recently began the heartbreaking hobby of writing and leaving mail on the porch for his “friends”. He would tape his own toys to the notes, thinking that he could somehow make friends this way. I often have to sneak outside to retrieve his notes so that he thinks someone somewhere is getting his messages of friendship. And I have to admit I have even “forged” notes left with stickers for him so that his excited trips to the front porch the next morning would sometimes net him a feeling of having an unseen pen-pal. It breaks my heart. This beautiful, hilarious, kind child deserves to have a friend. Today I got a miracle. Three of them.

My phone rang and I was distracted with a long-distance friend and catching up with each other’s lives. I didn’t notice Noah slipping out the front door.

It wasn’t until my sixteen-year old came home for lunch that Noah’s absence was known. Panic-stricken, Nick and I scoured the house, yard and garage… no Noah.

As I searched the house again, my heart pounding with a million frightened thoughts flitting through my brain, I began to tremble. A child off on his own is scary enough, but a deaf child poses hundreds of dangerous scenarios that gripped me in a panic.

“I found him!” Nick yelled from around the side of the house. “You have to see this Mom.” I could hear an awe in my teenager’s voice and hurried around to see. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I thought I was hallucinating.

A few houses down the street from ours, four children were playing gleefully. One of them was Noah. My neighbor runs a daycare and three of her charges were in the front yard, dancing and jumping and doing little-kid things – and Noah was right in the middle of it.

I watched with tears filling my eyes a scene that most mothers see every day, but that I had dreamed of and prayed hard for the past two years. Two little girls and two little boys who looked enough alike to be brothers chased each other around the trees, laughing and falling and giggling and generally having a silly time of it. Tears slid down my cheeks.

I watched from a distance and sheer joy filled my heart. Three little kids who have no idea what a gift they were giving a little deaf boy looked like miniature angels to me. My heart just filled with gratitude. Watching them, you couldn’t tell Noah was any different and his laughter rang with the exact same impishness as the others. I absolutely wanted to kiss and hug those three children.

I withheld and let him play until lunch time, at last walking down the street to retrieve my child like a million other mothers do a million times a day. I felt like I was floating and my grin was greeted by four chubby and dirty and happy faces.

“Hi! I’m Noah’s Mommy” I greeted them. I wanted to empty my purse out and give them all my money and credit cards.

“Is that his name?” the little girl in pink inquired of me. “I’m Jessica and she’s Carissa and he’s Nathan.” The little hostess made introductions all around.

“Yup. Noah can’t hear though. His ears don’t work very well.” I tried to squelch the visions of rejection as I shared this news with Noah’s new friends.

“We know, but he can CLIMB!” was the simple response. My son was proudly demonstrating this skill for her. Not missing a beat, the same little girl asked “Can he jump on the tramp with us?” Children are amazingly uncomplicated. Overlooking what Noah couldn’t do in favor of what he CAN do was a beautiful little lesson all in itself. I loved this little girl.

Time for Noah to come home, we made plans for another play date and my heart felt like E.T.’s, lighting up from the inside, all the way out.

Noah waved goodbye, started off for home and then turned back around. “Hug?” he signed to the mini angels.

I explained the sign to them and they each stepped forward to hug their friend. The tears threatened me again and we made a hasty retreat before I embarrassed him.

“Bye, Noah! Come over later!” followed us home. Noah looked up at me, his blue eyes huge and with a priceless grin signed “friends” to me. Holding his little hand in mine, I said a silent prayer of thanks for three miniature angels.

Susan Farr Fahncke copyright 2003 editor@2theheart.com

I am the founder and editor of 2TheHeart and I love my job! I am also the author of “Angel’s Legacy”, co-author and contributor to many other books! Read more of my work on my personal page at 2TheHeart: http://www.2theheart.com/susan_fahncke