Leap of Faith by Cassidy Shay (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

You’re only a day old, but I already love you so much. And I already know that I am so incredibly blessed to have you in my life. I love you, Amia.

“I plead with you – never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.” – Pope John Paul II

Happy birthday.

I look at her name, scribbled carelessly at the bottom. She had no idea just how important this letter would be to be.

I fold the letter, noticing the worn creases from being folded and unfolded. I’ve read this letter a lot recently. It’s no longer a burden, it’s no longer a sad reminder of my aunt who isn’t here. Instead, it now serves as a compass. A guide as I go through life. A reminder that my aunt is always with me, always watching over me and steering me in the right direction. Today, I really need that.

I sit down next to Samantha and she flashes me a smile. It's the end of September, and she's the editor of the school newspaper. She and I had a class last year, and we've gotten pretty close these last several weeks. Yesterday she asked me if she could write an article about my story. I agreed, because it's just the school newspaper. Besides, I can trust Samantha. I know she won't try to turn this into a huge deal and sell me out to anyone. 

"Thanks so much, again, for letting me do this. We haven't really had anything exciting happen in the last couple weeks, so I thought your story would be perfect."

She opens her notebook, which has several questions written out on it, and pulls out her phone. "Is it okay if I record this? Just in case I need to go back to get your exact words or something." I nod. "Okay, great. And you know, you can totally read it before we publish it, just so that I know you agree with how I put everything and all that. I want to make sure that this in no way affects our friendship." 

I smile. As far as journalists and reporters go, I haven't had very positive experiences. But Samantha is a good friend.

"Okay. Let's get started. So, your story started when you were six, right? Tell me about the accident."

I take a deep breath. "I was in the car with my aunt, who was basically my best friend in the world. I mean, I was only six, but we spent a lot of time together. The only thing that I remember is looking out the window and then we were off the bridge, going into the water. My aunt reached back and undid my seatbelt, and then rolled down the window. The next thing I remember, I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, soaking wet. Once the shock wore off, I was in the worst pain of my life. The change in pressure had caused both of my ear drums to burst, leaving me completely deaf in both ears. Several years later, I read about it in the old newspaper reports, and read that the truck beside us tried to move into our lane without checking to see if anyone was in his blind spot. I also read that I apparently swam out of the car and some person who had pulled over helped pull me out of the water. But as a six-year-old, I couldn't swim."

She's frantically writing in her notebook. "Okay, okay. And..." she writes the final letter, then looks back up at me. "If I understand correctly, people sometimes recover from that kind of injury?"

I nod. "Yeah, that's what the doctors said. Depending on the severity of the injury, people sometimes regain some or all of their hearing. But a lot of times, it's permanent. My ears never showed any signs of healing up, so I had resigned myself to being deaf for the rest of my life."

She smiles as she writes all this down. "Fast forward ten years, to August last year. What happened?"

I laugh. "Well, I was sitting in the car with my older sister. She was listening to a Christian radio station, and suddenly I was able to year the song. It was Amazing Grace. And I thought for sure I was going to wake up any minute and realize that it was all just a dream. But then the song changed, to one that I had never heard before. I had heard Amazing Grace as a child, so it made sense to be able to dream about that. But to make up a song while you're dreaming? Not likely." I smile, remembering that day. I had been so confused. "I sat there for like two whole minutes without saying anything, waiting for it to go away. Not because I wanted it to go away, of course. But I was expecting it to. It didn't make any sense."

"And what did the doctors say about that?"

I think back, to the many meetings with new doctors, each one claiming to be able to figure out what had happened. "None of them could figure out what it was. According to the state of my ear drums, I shouldn't be able to hear a single sound. And besides that, even if my ear drums had healed, there's no explanation for why I was only able to hear the one radio station."

She smiles. "Do you have a theory about that?"

I laugh. "Well, I've had countless people tell me that it's a miracle. At the time that this all happened, I wasn't really in a place where I believed in miracles, or even God, really. I wasn't out there claiming to be an atheist. I just didn't know. I just had a lot of reasons to believe that I was on my own, and no reasons to believe that there's some spiritual being controlling the world. But now, I've come to accept that this has to be a miracle." I blush, and she laughs. "Of course, I still don't say that out loud very often. For some reason, I just always feel like it's be bragging." I do an overly dramatic hair flip and use my best Valley Girl voice. "I'm just, like, so cool, like God performed a miracle on me." Samantha is laughing now, which makes me laugh too. "But there's no other explanation for it. And I definitely do believe in God now, so it's easier to accept that this is a miracle. Although I'm still not exactly sure why God would choose me for something like this."

She winks at me. "So, now tell me about your journey from questioning God's existence to where you are now. Was there a..." She clears her throat and nudges me with her elbow. "Special someone involved?"

I smile, thinking about Mikey. Of course, she knows the answer to this. "Yeah, there was. And he was definitely special." I sigh. "His dad owns the station that I could hear, and he got a time slot every day after school. And when my mom enrolled me in this school, because she thought that it was only a matter of a couple days or weeks before I started hearing everything, I met him. We became friends, and he got me to call in to the show and tell everyone my story. And it was so nice to have a conversation with someone and be able to hear. Even if it was over the phone and the only way I even heard my own voice was over the radio. I called in every day, and Mikey and I became friends."

Of course Samantha knows this story, so I could stop and get on to other questions. But it feels nice to remember, to go back to the beginning of our relationship. "One weekend, he invited me to go to church with him. Going to mass was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was so amazing and beautiful, to witness all the rituals and traditions that have been passed down for centuries. I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on, but Mikey showed me how to follow along with the missal, so I could read the prayers and bible readings and all that. And after that, it was kind of a regular thing. On Sunday mornings, he and his parents would come pick me up and we'd go to church together.

"And really, it was just Mikey being Mikey that brought me to believe in God. He just seemed so sure of it, so sure of everything he believed in. Not just sure of himself, but he was so passionate about it. And the things he would tell me, the conversations we would have, all that. I now know for a fact that God is out there, and that He loves us. And that's all Mikey's doing. I was so lost before I met him, and he brought me back to where I'm supposed to be."

For about a minute, she keeps writing in her notebook before she asks me anything else. When she finally looks back up at me, she has a kind smile on her face. "Sounds like you guys were really great together. So tell me more about your relationship with Mikey, and how it all progressed."

"It was a pretty slow thing. We had become really good friends, and neither one of us wanted to risk anything by putting ourselves out there and confessing our true feelings. But it eventually happened. We shared our first kiss at a New Year's Eve party. Cliché, right?" I look down at my hands for a second, and then continue. "But as I got closer to Mikey, I started being able to hear him too. Not just when I was listening to the radio. I could hear his voice when we were talking. I didn't just see his mouth form the words, but I heard them. It was..." I sigh. "I thought for sure that we were meant to be together forever, that we would grow up and get married and have babies and I would spend the rest of my life listening to his beautiful voice. I mean, really, what more of a sign do you need that two people are destined to be together?"

"But that didn't happen," she says. "What was it that came in between you two?"

I look back down at my hands. I remember that night, so many months ago, when my world shattered. When he ripped me to pieces. "Well, he realized that he was supposed to be a priest. That that's what God's plan for his life was. And obviously he can't have a girlfriend on the side. So he broke up with me. And I was so angry at first. And so, so heartbroken. But I also knew that he thought he was doing the right thing. Even though I didn't agree at all that it was the right thing. I kept waiting for him to call me, tell me it was a false alarm, propose to me, you know, all that kind of stuff." I laugh at myself, at how stupid it all sounded. 

"But what else happened when you guys broke up?"

"I could hear." I can't help but smile. Even now, several months later, I can't help but smile every time I say those three words. "I can hear. I can hear everything. I hear people talking as we pass in the halls. I hear the car start when my sister leaves in the morning. I hear the cereal hitting the bowl. I can hear my mom's voice again. When I meet a new person, I don't have to imagine what their voice sounds like. Because I can hear it."

She smiles at me. "So what's your favorite sound?"

I shake my head. "You're going to make fun of me for this." I take a deep breath. "I don't think I have one sound that's