The Mi Shebeirach is the traditional Jewish prayer for the sick and injured.

Life is fragile. Deep down, we all know it but we seem to expend a lot of energy keeping ourselves from knowing it on the surface. The slightest hint of fragility makes many of us run. Some do it by dropping friends when they become ill. I learned long ago, when I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, that people you would think were close friends are only fair-weather friends and others, whom you�d never think of as close, can face life�and you�and offer support.

Today�s lesson in the fragility of life comes from an eight month old baby, my grand-niece. As I�m writing this, Mr. Philately and I are waiting for a call with more information. From what we know now, the baby�s dad was carrying her down some icy steps and he slipped and fell. He�s okay but she�s in the hospital with a skull fracture and bleeding within the cranium. The situation is wait-and-see.

My sister-in-law asked me to pray. Such requests tie me in knots. Prayers for health do not really fit into my view of the universe. If God really has a plan, who am I to ask God to deviate from it? If there is no plan and we are to do the best we can with the tools God has given us, then what can prayer really do in this circumstance? I�ve always tended to use prayer as meditation, as education, as connection, and as an opportunity to hear the small spark of God within. Neither meditation, education, connection, or the spark within will do anything for that baby, whatever it might do for me.

On the other hand, connection matters here. Praying with others is comfort for me, for Mr. Philately, and for Kat and Day-Hay. Knowing that we are praying for the baby may give her parents some comfort. There�s little else we can supply right now�other than perhaps a plane ticket for Grandma to get there. We are in Milwaukee and the baby and her parents are in Montreal.

The baby and her parents will need all the support they can get, especially her dad. My years as a special education teacher and my years as a parent have taught me that crisis with a child does not necessarily pull couples together. Just as often, it tears them apart. Humans seem unable to accept that some things just happen. There must be a reason�and there must be blame. The baby�s parents are young and the mother, I fear, will lack the maturity not to voice, ever, the small voice in her mind that probably is saying, �If only you had been more careful.�

So, I will pray but not directly for the health of that baby, however much I want the baby to thrive�and I do very, very much. I will pray for the wisdom, whatever comes, to say the right thing or, if I cannot manage that, to at least refrain from saying the wrong thing. I will pray for the strength and wisdom not to make a bad situation worse.

And I�ll sit by the phone awaiting news.

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