The Shoebox Miracle

My great-grandfather was born so small and fragile that the hospital sent him home in a shoebox. He was 4.5 months premature. That box was intended to be his final resting place. He was expected to die.

He weighed about one pound. One pound of stubborn life.

The doctor said there was no chance he would survive.

“We’re sorry. There’s nothing we can do. You may take him home.”

A nurse lowered the tiny body into the box and handed it to my great-great-grandmother. She surrendered to the outcome. She had other children to care for.

Her daughter had different plans. As his mother awaited his last breath and anticipated the final drum of his tiny beating heart, his sister, summoning the motherly instinct in herself, took him — took the box, from her mother.

She cradled the box and carried it to the window of their little farmhouse in Attica, Indiana, setting it on the radiator. She would sit by that box for hours on end, taking him in her arms when she felt he needed her. As my aunt once said, the baby was too weak to cry.

She slept beside him, monitoring him and resting his limp frame against her rib cage.

She fed him raw cow’s milk from the farm until one day, his mother stopped playing the doctor’s words in her head, and played something else instead — the tune of the little organ in that baby’s chest, quietly beating without him ever having to ask.

Slowly, that baby started to grow. He eventually grew into a young man. He had drinking problems throughout his life, and perhaps his premature birth led to mental challenges he could never fully overcome.

Despite all of that, he lived long enough to raise a family.

And because of the unshakeable spirit of that young girl, and that stubborn little beating heart, my grandmother came into this world and gave birth to a girl named Martha, my wonderful mother.

I am here because that baby boy’s little heart kept beating. I am here because that baby boy’s sister simply refused to let him die.

And I can follow the thin, frail line of possibility across generations, all the way to my niece and nephews.

As human beings, the odds are never in our favor. And yet, here we are. A miracle with a lineage of survivors behind us.

It’s humbling, and it’s also a call.

The chances of us not being here are staggering. Many say the odds are around 1:4 trillion. But perhaps, like the doctor said, those chances are actually 0.

They are too small to be measured.

Too fragile to keep.

We must cherish the strength of those who came before us. When we feel weak, we must recall their power as we step into our own.

If my great-grandfather could survive in a box, warmed by the heat of a radiator, what dreams can I conjure up? What magic can I procure?

I'd better run off and see.

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