When it was time for Adam to go to school, Susan decided to homeschool him. She was already tutoring other children, so it seemed like a practical decision. But it was so much more. “I was blessed to be his mom, his teacher and his nurse,” Susan says. “We were together twenty-four hours a day, never spending much time apart.” Rather than considering this a burden, Susan really loved looking for ways to make Adam’s life more enjoyable.

One item that Adam really loved were smiley faces. “They just look so happy, Mom,” he would say. (Susan filled the school room with them.) Adam had many hospitalizations and medications, but he faced life with laughter and a joyful spirit—and his never-ending enjoyment of those smiley faces. And his love for his mother… “Mom, I hope you die before I do because I don’t think you could make it without me,” he sometimes told her. Susan thought that it might work out that way. Given the good care that Adam was receiving, he could live to reach his thirties, perhaps even his forties.

However, Adam died suddenly when he was twelve.  It was the hardest situation that Susan had ever faced. “I drew courage from the strength, wisdom and joy that my Adam showed every day of his life,” she says, struggling for composure and calm. She was determined not to let Adam’s death define who she was, but rather his life.

One morning about six months after Adam had died, Susan was working on the computer, when her printer suddenly spit out a piece of paper. Strange, Susan thought as she reached for it. She hadn’t been printing anything. But there, up in the corner, she noticed a tiny smiley face, so small that it could have been missed. Chills ran through her.  How had this happened?

About three months later while she was absorbed in a lesson with her home school students, the printer again started up, and discharged a piece of paper----and there, again, was the same smiley face. “It must be something you’re doing,” Susan’s skeptical husband protested.

“But what?” Susan wondered. “I hadn’t touched any of the computer controls either time…” She called her computer company, and the technician was baffled too. He had never heard of such a thing.

Only, it began to happen regularly, and now occurs---without warning---every few months. Now, however, there is a smiley AND a heart! Just recently Susan’s printer turned on, and delivered three faces and a heart. Maybe angels know how to run computers..

“Do I believe they are a sign from my Adam?” Susan asks. “I most certainly do. They give me heart tugs but good ones. I treasure every smiley I receive and I consider myself blessed.”

Susan, like many parents who have lost children, find that people are often ill-at-ease with them, or don’t like to discuss the child after some time has passed---which only increases a parent’s sorrow. So she has set up a web site and invites you all to take a look at: www.adamkevinkidd.com  And may we parents with healthy children says a special prayer of thanks this week.

(C) 2004  Joan Wester Anderson  www.joanwanderson.com