The Nativity and Hope

On each of the twelve floors there are clear signs of the upcoming celebration of Christmas: stars, trees, ornaments, packages wrapped up in glimmery wrapping, stuffed Santas on his sled...

I work in a big pediatric hospital in New York, and we are already deep into December. On each of the twelve floors there are clear signs of the upcoming celebration of Christmas: stars, trees, ornaments, packages wrapped up in glimmery wrapping, stuffed Santas on his sled.

As I do every year, I prepare a little nativity scene to put at the entrance of my floor, the Intensive Neonatal Therapy Unit; it helps us keep in mind the Fact that changed history forever, but that started as a little newborn baby, just like our little patients, so little, weak and defenseless.

Tuesday morning the head of the floor called me to say that I needed to remove the nativity scene. The Fire Marshall had come to inspect for fire hazards and the nativity, thought minimal, was a fire hazard. And, I was told, if we didn't remove it we would receive a fine for breaking the code. I couldn’t believe it…

“My nativity is ceramic, there is no fire hazard”, I tried to say, in order to retain my little piece of art, which I am sure is a sign of hope for parents who come to visit their sick babies. But there was nothing I could do, and my nativity ended up in a plastic bag.

In the meantime I was called to the delivery room, as a woman unexpectedly gave birth, prematurely, to a tiny little boy who weighed only 600 grams. He didn’t grow much because his mother had lost her water months earlier; we were afraid that his lungs would not develop.

We put him in the incubator to keep him warm and we gave him oxygen through a powerful machine, giving him 600 breaths a minute. His life was hanging by a thread…
After about an hour his parents came in to visit. The mother was lying on a gurney—they were taking her to the post-partum operating room—but they wanted a short visit in the neonatal reanimation room to see their little boy, knowing that his condition was absolutely critical.

The mother was focused on him, her gaze was sweet, grasping his little hand, whispering to him; the father asked me, “is there hope?”

Hope…my little nativity scene came to mind, as the hope I wanted to “sustain” them with. Instead, I was in front of this father and this mother, and what was the hope that I could give them? I looked at the boy and I looked at the parents and I said, “Congratulations! You have a little boy. He is a little small,…and, what will you name him?” The mother thought for a minute and then came a big small and she exclaimed, “Ethan”.

I too smiled because I understood, certainly the mother was right! When there is a name there is hope; to have a name means ‘to be called’, that is, the Mystery of God called him to life, he wanted him, he wants him now.

Hope is the fact that this baby is here now and his life, though hanging by a thread, is precious in the eyes of his parents, in my eyes, in the eyes of the nurses, of the interns, an in all of the peple who were around him now in the neonatal intensive therapy unit who were fighting for his life, and who were going to stay with him every instant to modulate things according to his needs.

But his life was even more precious in the eyes of He who gave him a purpose, and who will continue to give him life until this purpose is finished. We don’t need the nativity. Here we are, together, in the grotto of Bethlehem.