Ursula Grant pulled the nondescript state car into the curb. She glanced down to verify the address written on the sheet clipped to the file on the seat beside her. Yes, the small semi-detached house on the corner in this rundown working class neighborhood should be painted, and the yard looked like it needed emergency care for a skin disease. Weeds alternated with bald patches and the whole was littered with a few battered rusted toys but it was the right address. Ursula hated having to do these investigative home visits to follow up on child abuse reports. You never knew what you would find and when a child was involved it was hard to maintain any sense of perspective. Sighing, she slid from the car, locked the door and moved reluctantly up the cracked walk to the house. The woman who answered her knock was too thin and her tired face seemed aged more than the thirty-five years Ursula’s notes indicated her to be.
“I’m Miss Grant, I called you to make a home visit from the office of Adult and Family Services. You are Mary Wilson?” she inquired pleasantly.
“Yes, please come in. Would you like some coffee? I only have instant, or maybe tea?” responded the woman turning to lead the way down a narrow hall to a small neat kitchen.
“Oh, know thank you, is your daughter here?” Ursula asked glancing about the cramped but tidy room.
“Oh, of course, Heidi, come in here sweetheart,” Mary Wilson called.
A quick step was heard moving almost in a run from the front of the house. A small girl skipped into the room. She looked more like four than the seven years old Ursula’s report stated. Her small cherubic face was surrounded by a cloud of blond curls. Her wide gray eyes seemed to gaze through Ursula. There focus was somewhere beyond her and perhaps viewing another dimension. She slid to a stop and turned her little face toward her mother, who stood with hands clasped tightly at her waist.
“Yes mommy,” inquired the child. Ursula noted that the girl’s right arm was in a cast, but there were no signs of neglect in the shining clean hair and rosy face. Her clothes were neat if a little faded and worn.
Ursula leaned down toward the little girl reaching a hand out to touch her shoulder and turn the child to face herself.
“Hello Heidi, I am Miss Grant, will you answer some questions for me? She asked, trying to make her voice sound friendly.
“Its okay honey, tell the lady anything she wants to know,” instructed Mary in a quiet voice.
“Heidi, how did you hurt your arm,” asked Ursula.
A look of embarrassment crossed the little girl’s face. “I fell out of my tree house. I was trying to touch a bird I could hear singing and he was to far away. I leaned out and fell down,” she faltered.
“You climb up in trees? Gasped Ursula.
Sure, my daddy built me a house in the tree in my backyard for my birthday before he went away to heaven,” answered the child.
“Will you show me the tree house,” asked Ursula.
“Okay, come on!” replied the child turning to dart out a back door.
Ursula followed and found herself in a small yard dominated by an ancient oak with broad thick branches. The child scampered ahead and clambered up a ladder disappearing into the thick foliage more than ten feet overhead. She had seen many things in her life, but nothing could prepare
Her for the sight she looked upon now. What kind of mother allowed a blind child to climb trees?
“Come on,” called the cheerful voice from above. Ursula slowly placed her foot on the bottom rung. It seemed to be sturdy. Slowly she climbed after the girl. The ladder ended at a platform surrounded by a three-foot high railing. It was wedged into the tree where it divided sending four large branches out to form a wide cradle for the structure. A small bench and table were in one corner and a set of shelves with a cupboard below was in another. Battered plastic dishes and old empty butter tubs lined the shelves and a braille book lay open on the table. All around the thick green leaves of the tree sheltered the platform in a green embrace. Ursula stepped carefully on to the floor of the little tree house. The boards were wide and carefully joined and braced. The soft summer breeze sighed through the tree and somewhere a bird sang. “This is a lovely place Heidi,” Ursula commented quietly.
“Yes, some of the other kids come and ask to play with me up here,” Heidi said. “They never did before daddy built it for me. I can’t play ball and stuff, but they like to play in my house,” she stated proudly.
Sometime later, seated at the table back in the cozy kitchen, Ursula asked, “Aren’t you afraid of letting your little girl climb up into that tree?”
Mary Wilson sighed as she turned from the stove with the cup of tea the social worker had asked her to make. “I want her to grow up as much like other children as I can,” she answered, moving to place the cup before the welfare worker. “When the doctors told Jeff and me our baby was going to be blind, we agreed that we couldn’t let our fears keep her from growing up with the same experiences as other children. Jeff was a construction worker and he built that tree house for her fifth birthday right before he died in the car crash. I know it is built with better materials and greater care than this house. I have to believe that falling out of a tree isn’t any worse for Heidi than any other childhood accident. I have to let her explore and experience as much of what the world has to offer as any sighted child. I can’t forbid her to climb up to play in her house just because she is blind. I let her climb that tree because I love her. I don’t want to place limits on what she can do out of my own fears for her safety. That would be crippling her ability to grow and learn more than her blindness does out of my own weakness. You have no idea how many times I have fought the impulse to overprotect, to wrap her up and keep her safe from all harm. But, how would that prepare her to go out and be a contributing member of society someday when I won’t be around to take care of her?” asked Mary earnestly.
“I guess it wouldn’t,” replied Ursula putting down her empty cup, closing her folder and rising to leave. This was going to be a hard report to write. How did you explain the differences between negligence and love that gave a disabled child the room for growth and normal child development?