Story 2: An Accident of Birth?

Jennifer Barrett

I still remember the piercing pain. I can’t have been more than five years old, but that ear infection was so sore that it is forever etched in my memory.

My mother put some ear drops into my throbbing ear and gave me a Disprin dissolved in a glass of orange squash; then she took me in her arms, covered my sore ear with her hand and cuddled me until the medication started to take effect. As my tears abated, she gently drew pictures on my face with the tip of her finger. And just as I began to drift off, I remember her whispering that she loved me more than anything in the world.

I opened one eye. “Really?”

“Yes, you and your brothers are so precious to me,” she said, “I wouldn’t swap you for all the money in the world.”

This fully woke me from my drowsy state. It seemed somewhat suspect to me. I mean, my brothers and I were great ’n’ all – but not for all the money in the world! This needed clarification.

“Not even for a hundred pounds?” I asked, placing the largest denomination of funds I could possibly imagine on the table. Times were difficult growing up in 1970s Ireland, and I was always aware that money was tight. I wouldn’t have blamed my mother if she’d given in under such enormous temptation – it was a whole hundred pounds after all.

But my mother just smiled, kissed my forehead, squeezed me a little tighter and began to hum the tune of “Danny Boy”. I drifted off to sleep safe in the knowledge that we were all to remain poor, but happy together for a very long time to come.

I am blessed that my childhood was packed full of such tender moments and memories – I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. I remember long, happy, fun-filled summer days on Brittas Bay beach with my siblings and cousins, and walks in the countryside with my mum, dad, brothers and the much-loved pooch of the time – whether it was Sam, Oscar or Harvey, all very much a part of our noisy family life. And I can easily recall the joy in the house as each new bonny Barrett baby joined the brood: my younger brother Chris, his two little legs in plaster for his early months to help turn his feet out the right way; changing nappies for my cute little sister Suz as she giggled and smiled, charming everyone she met (including her big sis). I even look back with fondness at the daily squabbles and scrapes between me and my older brother Paul. The poor fella didn’t know what hit him when his wilful little sister arrived, and our squabbles toughened me up for life ahead.

But I almost didn’t make it at all – when my mother was just three months pregnant with me, the doctor told her that there was a strong possibility that I wouldn’t make it. But she was having none of it. Determined I would survive, she took to the bed and rested up for a month while my father and grandmother looked after my older brother and the house. And I obviously enjoyed being closely minded – so much so that I didn’t want to come out at all in the end . . . Eventually, several weeks late, but in the fullness of health, and by all accounts a pudgy thing with a shock of dark hair, I took my first breaths. I was born at home with a midwife as was the popular trend in England at the time, so my father was right there to witness my birth. Apparently I had excellent timing, arriving quite quickly in the end on Saturday morning at ten o’clock, leaving plenty of time for Dad to go on to cook a roast dinner for my visiting grandparents and our little family. But in all the excitement of the new arrival, Dad forgot to defrost the chicken before roasting it, and on my every birthday until the day she died my grandmother enjoyed teasing him about that iced roast chicken meal.

So, once my mum was back in charge of the cooking, my childhood was always safe, secure and happy. But there are times I wonder how much of my good fortune was down to nothing more than a twist of fate, a small accident of birth? What if I hadn’t arrived into that terraced house in Croydon to Maureen and John? I was late after all and, according to some, not even expected to make it at all. So what if I’d arrived somewhere else entirely? If I were a child again, and born somewhere else, to different parents – how different might my childhood, my life, have been?

Not long ago my work took me to a small project run by Australian missionary Brothers in the Kibera Slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Kibera has some of the harshest living conditions I have ever witnessed. Almost one million people live there in an area roughly the same size as Central Park in New York. It is an extremely poor area and most of its inhabitants lack access to basic facilities such as electricity or a fresh water supply. Small children play on large mounds of rubbish, sewage and scrap; broken-down cars drive along mud-tracks lined by small tin-shack shops, the many gaps in roofs and windows patched up with cardboard boxes and plastic sacks. The houses are built in winding mazes, spiralling up and down the mud hills. As you walk through the narrow lanes, you need to dodge low under protruding, corrugated-iron structures – most of which my mother would have said could have plucked your eye out – and in this case she would have been right. I dread to think what conditions are like in the rainy season when the ground underneath must be slippy and dangerous.

Certainly no place for a child to grow up.

You would think . . .

Yet it was here that I visited the Mary Rice Centre – a small special-needs school and centre. It is a tiny but vibrant place offering these often forgotten children physical therapy and a chance at education, the ultimate goal being to help them make the transition into state schools.

As the school was closed for holidays, we visited some of the children and their families in their homes. Isaac, a child with cerebral palsy was living in a newly built multi-storey building on the outskirts of the slum. Arriving at the complex, I was dismayed to see a pile of rubbish and sewage out front almost half as high as the building itself. There were no lifts inside, and I wondered how this family managed to carry their severely disabled child up the ten flights of stairs to their fifth-storey flat each day. I marvelled at what genius could have decided to give this family this flat, and not one on the ground floor that Isaac could access with greater ease in his wheelchair. I felt dismayed for this poor young boy and his family, and uneasy about my own comparably privileged situation. How could it be right that I could have so much, could be given such a good start in life, while here on the other side of the world a young boy must contend with poverty and physical challenge on a scale that I could barely begin to comprehend.

But once inside, my view changed. The flat was small and minimally furnished, but utterly spotless. I was introduced to Isaac’s maternal grandmother and aunt who were looking after him while his own mother was attending a funeral. African women are truly remarkable in how they come together to support and help each other rear their families. The women led me to a small room where Isaac was waiting to meet me. As soon as he saw them his eyes lit up. They embraced, and I sat beside Isaac. He didn’t talk, but he didn’t need to – his smile was as broad as any I’ve seen. Pride and love shone in the eyes of his family, who delighted in his every movement. We talked about their lives, which were certainly very hard, but I learnt how as a family they all pulled together to ensure Isaac had the best life that they could give him, and about how important the Mary Rice Centre was to the whole family. And as we spoke Isaac smiled, took my hand, put on my sunglasses for a photograph, played with my charm bracelet, and tried on the hat I was holding – charming me just as he obviously had his own extended family. And I realised that this was a strong family unit no different from my own. There was no need for me to feel sorry for Isaac. He may have severe physical challenges, and his family had little materially, but he was rich in the love and support of his family, and through the Centre he also had a chance of education and much-needed physical therapy for his condition. He was a genuinely happy young boy – glowing with happiness, in fact. The experience changed my view of the world.

Just a few years earlier in Ireland, and affected by my experience as a volunteer with the Special Olympics 2003 World Games in Ireland, I volunteered at a local social project. Every Wednesday a disco and club was held where adults with special needs could dance, socialise with friends, and play pool, darts and other games. It was here that I met Vincent. If you didn’t know Vincent, at first you might not realise he had special needs at all. It was only after talking to him for a while that you realised he was a little slow – but just a little. A gentle soul, he preferred to have one-on-one chats with the volunteers and older club members than to join in with any of the noisier group activities. I remember one conversation when Vincent asked me if I had my own car. When I said I did, he appeared quite sad and wistful for a moment, before telling me that it was his dream to drive a car. Then he asked if I had a mobile phone. And when I showed him my phone, he smiled and told me that his aunt was buying him one for his birthday in a couple of months. He was so excited about having his first phone that he told me about it again every week that we met.

On club nights, we would sing “Happy Birthday” to whoever was celebrating their birthday that week. I hadn’t told anyone there the date of my birthday, but a few days after it we sang happy birthday to Vincent. That was when Vincent and I worked out that we were born just one day apart. Just one day, and another accident of birth separated me and this sensitive, thoughtful young man who could only dream of driving a car, and whose year was made when he finally got his own mobile phone. It struck me that so much that I take for granted was aspirational to this young man who just one day later was born into a different situation to me – his mind just ever so slightly different from mine.

So if I were a child again, but this time born into a different place, family or situation – perhaps one like Isaac’s or Vincent’s, life would doubtless be hard. But who am I to judge whether that childhood, that life, would be better or worse than my own? All we ever know is our own reality, our own existence. With the love and security of our own family and people, and the added support of vital services in our community, every child has a chance of happiness.

Just like everyone else, today Vincent is a young man struggling with the cards life dealt him, but he is a happy, sociable fellow who delights in the small things of life that might seem of little importance to others. And the day that I met Isaac in Nairobi he seemed just as happy and content in his supportive family unit as I had done that day when my mother reassured me she wouldn’t give me up for all the money in the world.

I just wonder what might have happened if I’d offered her a thousand pounds though?

Jennifer Barrett is chief executive of a developing world charity, and over the years has worked in a number of fundraising, marketing and development roles across a range of Irish arts organisations, schools, colleges and other non-profit organisations. She divides her time between her home in West Dublin and her busy family home in Wicklow where her large family descend most weekends. A keen photographer, she spends much of her spare time travelling far and wide to photograph and observe whales and other marine life in their natural habitats. It was a particularly magical experience with orcas in the arctic waters of Norway that inspired her first novel Look into the Eye, published by Poolbeg Press.