The Story of Yorinde

The Story of Yorinde

Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses understanding
(Kahlil Gibran)

For baby Yorinde, my second daughter, energy was a byword.
Her sparkling black cherry eyes, her dimpled smile
made her the darling of the family. Her sister Delphine, two
years older, was dragging her around like a doll. We
beamed with delight when she uttered her first word and
caught her in our arms tumbling with her early steps.
Breathless with excitement, laughing in the sun, we were
throwing around kisses of happiness. My beautiful family
had stepped right out of a picture book, my husband, goodlooking,
my adorable children, perfection. I was the queen
of my fairy tale home tending a garden full of flowers.
And yet...was there something looming behind the perfect
life, in the depth of fate? The day Yorinde was born some
inner voice made me say: "I will cry many tears for this
little soul." Deja vu? Perhaps we all know instinctively
snippets of the future without realising our inner potential.
One day, unexpectedly, I felt this overpowering feeling of
doom and asked several people around me:
"How long does happiness last?"
I was not taken seriously. They laughed my concerns away.
When I told my husband to appreciate our baby Yorinde:
" How long will we have her?" he gave me strange looks.
But there was no escape: the fierce fingers of destiny were
out to throttle our lives.
On one Sunday morning everything would change
overnight, our life be altered beyond recognition. We were
to become strangers to one another.
Six days before we had celebrated her happy first birthday.
I had made her a fluffy white cat which she unpacked
herself with great smiles and joyful shrieks. But now I saw
my baby lying unconscious in her cot. She was hardly
breathing, soaked in sweat and shaken by convulsions, one
after the other. They never seemed to stop. It felt like being
in the midst of a devastating whirlwind.
The ambulance raced us to hospital. As in a never lifting
fog I anxiously passed the following days and nights by her
bedside.
A senior consultant called us into his room. "Your daughter
is now handicapped," he said. I could not take it in. His
words did not make sense. "Pardon?" I asked.
"Handicapped !!" he shouted.
" There is nothing else we can do for her. May be in the
United States one could, but not here in Britain."
UK doctors, who first had tried these highly delicate
operations, removing blood clots from babies' brains, had
stopped doing them, for most of the babies had died.
Many people, doctors, nurses and health workers, who
talked to us, sounded contradictory. When one voice gave
us hope, the next took it away. Tears were blinding, storms
of emotion tearing our inner strength. Life was now a
whirlpool and I felt us sucked under. There were no safety
ropes, no hugs, no calming words to support one another.
The wall between us had already grown too high.
Years of distress followed an initial hope given by some
doctors. They made us believe that there would still be a
cure for our daughter. Painful physiotherapy on monthly
visits to specialists in London, medicine to stop her
epilepsy, speech therapy, one thing followed another in an
endless attempt to make Yorinde better. Different toys
were tried, from small bricks for learning again to grip to
giant balls for managing her balance. Her body suffered
appallingly in the grasp of spasms. The whole right side of
her body was affected as the damage had ravaged the left
side of her brain. Her right hand was clawed into a tight
fist, her arm was held rigidly and her right foot curled into
a ball. Trouble started when she grew. I could not simply
go and buy her new shoes. I had to rely on the advice of a
doctor. When I made an appointment with her orthopaedic
surgeon, I was releaved. Could he please measure her
crippled foot and tell about her shoe size? He indignantly
turned around: "Madam," he thundered, "I am not a shoe
doctor! If you want to find out about her correct shoe size,
just wait until she gets some blisters on her foot, then you'll
know!"
There was fight after fight with the medical profession.
Many talked down on Yorinde, treating her as if she was
not there. Once, when she cried out in pain after a violent
physiotherapy session, I was told by a doctor, that she was
a vegetable and her screams just were reflexes. Another
day a doctor encouraged me that my baby's brain was
growing, which was a good sign, only to hear the next day
that he had made a mistake with the tape measure. There
was no improvement at all. Hopes were raised and bashed.
I could have done with hugs or words of comfort. There
were none.
Ever so often we were asked to attend assessments where
Yorinde's case was being discussed. Though we, her
parents, were not included. We had to sit for hours outside
a locked door feeling like criminals waiting for judgement.
Of course, I rebelled, complained, shouted. My husband
shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment. He never
protested, kept silent, withdrawn in his own personal grief.
From a happy dream we had slipped into a nightmare and I
did not see a way out of it.
Yorinde was now classified as handicapped. When she was
about four, she was signed up for a special school. Unable
to speak or stand by herself she had to have help all day
long.
I had to dress and feed her, attending constantly to all her
needs often at the cost to my other small children. We
planned another baby hoping to help with her learning to
speak and to crawl. She never would. A delightful child,
her eyes sparkling with smiles she attracted people. They
adored her not only because she looked beautiful with her
velvety olive skin, her shiny dark curls, but also for this
vulnerability that she carried with an air of grace.
She was popular in her special needs school and they used
her smiling face for their catalogue to attract sponsors.
Worn out by my daily tasks I was looking for an au pair
from abroad. We had interviewed several girls and found
Karin with a special ability and compassion for a disabled
child. From the Black Forest she arrived with a great
eagerness to help. Highly religious she was prepared by her
parents and her priest to give her utmost care to our
vulnerable daughter. Right from the start Karin delighted
us with her unusual gift, a total dedication to her task. It
was tragic, that she should only last a week with us. On the
day when she crossed our busy road with Yorinde in her
buggy, she was hit by a speeding car, thrown into the air
like a rag doll and ended up with a twisted pushchair, next
to our unconscious daughter. I still can remember the
screams of my husband when he found them both lying on
the road. He sounded like a lion in despair. Karin had to
spend three months in hospital, with many of her bones
broken. When I phoned her mother in Germany, she told
me she had been diagnosed with cancer some minutes ago.
Yet she travelled immediately to England to be with her
daughter.
Yorinde miraculously had only suffered a broken pelvis but
the hospital sent her home again. They had forgotten to exray
her straight after the accident, and it only was
discovered days later, after she had screamed day and
night. Her story made headlines on the title page of the
local newspaper. The woman driver who caused it was
never charged.
At the age of ten Yorinde had become heavy. My cartilage
crumbled under her weight and the pain was so strong that
once or twice I collapsed on the road unable to lift myself
up. I had to ask a complete stranger "to please pull my leg"
and finally had to have a knee operation. I had difficulties
walking and could not carry her any more. We went
through many months of heart rending considerations to
find a permanent home for her. Decisions are easier when
no choices are left. It had to be done and we had to think
about Yorinde's future, when we were old and could not do
any more all the things for her. We all suffered even before
she parted from us. It felt like losing an eye or a finger of
one's hand. There was no place available in Britain but
through a lucky coincidence we heard about the
Philadelphia Society in Holland, a protestant Charitable
Trust who agreed to receive Yorinde and made her very
welcome. She is today, as I am writing, 26 years old and
has already spent sixteen years in the Netherlands. She
lives in sheltered accommodations with a room of her own
and leads a protected and well-cared for life. Brought up in
England, but now used to her Dutch environment, she still
seems to remember the old words, for when she hears
English, she lights up and giggles. She never though
learned to speak or to walk, but manages to drive an
electric wheel chair. Her beautiful smile and her black
cherry eyes still draw people in and make them love her.
There passes no day I do not think about her.
My heart was chipped badly that day she fell ill.