The Savant Who Knew His Mother’s Love (part 2/3)
Continued from The Savant Who Knew his Mother’s Love, part 1
Shipped Out to America
Skipping ahead to adulthood, May became engaged to a soldier, following the urging of her mother. He was a man that Maria Hansen had helped during the war. By age eighteen May was an American wife.
Her first marriage had wonderful adventures of its own, and it saw five children into the world. But I will fast-forward this part of her life, through the raising of her family and her eventual widowhood, then to a new marriage, and to the day when she received her final charge. When Leslie came into her life.
Leslie
When May first saw her new son, she remembered that her mother had used slippery elm powder for sick babies. So, she mixed this with milk and a little sugar.
“Try a little, love. You’ll like this,” she said softly. Leslie didn’t seem to understand He lay motionless, his tongue pushing out the nipple. “Suck, baby, you must suck it in.” May encouraged. Still, he lay motionless.
May put her mouth against his cheek, making loud sucking sounds. Then she put the bottle in his mouth, hoping he might catch on. She kept up the procedure most of the afternoon, sucking on the baby’s cheek and putting the bottle in his mouth, over and over again. As the warm milk trickled down his throat, he grew bolder. Pretty soon he was sucking with the zest of a normal, healthy infant. May danced with him around the room. “Baby,” she cried out, “you’re going to live!”
May and Joe Lemke with Leslie
Another natural cure employed by May was for his eye sockets. They were still red and were showing new signs of infection. It was a boric acid solution which she used, until the eye sockets were healed, and the lids lay down naturally. The baby rarely cried or whimpered. He hardly moved. His arms and legs were limp, and when she lifted them, they dropped down. She couldn’t tell when he was awake or asleep
Days, months, and years passed between the smallest indications of any developmental change. After a year she gradually introduced solid food, and eventually moved away from bottles and poured water into his throat, which was the only way to help him drink. Through the years, May refused to listen to suggestions from friends and family. Even her own children encouraged her to put Leslie into an institution. She replied with the same steadfast faith.
“I know God can do things,” May said, “If He can do them for others, then He can do them for me!” But I do think I’ve waited long enough, she thought to herself. She decided to go home and wait a little longer.
May cuddled Leslie in her arms every day, rocking him and singing softly to him. “I want him to know that he’s loved,” she said over and over again to Joe, “to know he has a mother and a father who love him just like other children.”
Despite May’s gentleness, Leslie always tensed, startled, as if he were frightened whenever she picked him up. He never relaxed his body against her like a normal baby. He was more like a plastic baby, rigid, with rarely a cry, never a smile.
But May refused to give up. “Children respond to love, she told Joe. “They can feel it in your body when you hold them close. I know he’ll feel it eventually. It just takes more time with a child like this.”
Until Leslie was seven years old, May always carried him. He was then fifty pounds, and it was evident that she would not be able to continue. She was nearly sixty years old. So, she created an apparatus to strap him to her back and walked with him as he dragged his motionless feet behind. By age nine, when there was not yet a single sign of his attempting to walk, she came up with another idea. Since they lived beside a lake, she encouraged Joe to take him swimming. This became a daily routine. Yet there was still no sign of movement from the child. When Leslie was ten, he took his first step.
A New Prayer
When Leslie was twelve years old, May began to pray a new prayer for her son. She prayed that he might have a gift, something to give his life meaning. Several times a day, she implored, “Dear Lord, the Bible says that you gave each of us a talent. Please help me find the talent in this poor boy who lies there most of the day and does nothing.”
The next major episode in Leslie’s life was the one which led to his worldwide recognition as a pianist. May had noticed him plucking on strings. In May’s eyes, he was making music. This was the talent she had asked for. So she bought him a piano, put it in his room and began playing little songs with him. She helped him listen to records, radio, and television. This became his new routine.
He often sat listening to records or radio for hours, head down, serious, intense, a study in concentration. Sometimes his foot or hand even moved methodically with the beat.
To be continued in Part Three…
This three-part story was taken from the book Dyslexic No More: Saved by the ABC’s by Meg Rayborn Dawson
