the PDF of her book - National Aphasia Association

54 Ruth Codier Resch Without Utterance:
In the fourth year after the stroke, I mumble to friends about
finding a job.
They try not to laugh, but I need more collegiality. One of them invites
me to volunteer at the cancer hospital where she is on the faculty. This I can
do. I think that I am a natural to do psychotherapy with cancer patients. It
is a teaching hospital and none of the adult psychotherapy services want a
volunteer encroach¬ing on their turf. In an interview with the chief psychiatrist
in pediatrics, Dr. Yehuda Nir, I mention my baby specialty in passing. He
lights up. “We don’t have one of you!” he says, delighted. No one else wants
the turf of children who don’t yet talk—babies and toddlers under two. In fact
I am horrified that babies are dying of cancer. But I’m in my element with my
box of baby evaluation toys, my non-verbal communication with babies.
Oddly I am not depressed by this work, rather I’m comfortable being
in that chancy mortal place with these mothers. In fact, I feel inordinate joy.
It is my nearness to my own death that connects me deeply to the hearts of
these women who are living, fearfully and hopefully, at the edge of life and
death every day with their babies. Yehuda Nir gives me constant enthusiastic
support for these unusual talents and mentors me in how to hold in myself
the reality of the fragility of life and death here.
I speak to the mothers about how they hold their babies in love and
life, at the same time releasing them in love to the possibility of death. I give
voice and acknowledge the tightrope they live on. The brisk progression of
ordinary infant development is a resource in illness to support health. I show
the mothers how to use the baby’s natural development through gentle but
challenging play.
A mother and toddler are both afraid because of the fragility of the
little girl’s health, so she doesn’t walk. She can be sick and walk too, I tell the
mother. With soft patience I soothe both of them into the mysterious delight
of walking.
I hold the baby’s body securely as a foot floats near the floor. It waivers
in fear, barely touching. Subtly I drop her weight into her feet and she feels