One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

I was a little early to pick The Kid up the other day, so I hovered next to the closed door of his preschool classroom and peeked in, a stolen moment plucked from all those I miss while he’s at school. One teacher–the one we sometimes see at the playground, the one who said “We just let James be James” and shrugged good-naturedly, reminding me of that quote I read somewhere about how shrugging our shoulders is the beginning of wisdom–she was sitting beside the monitor of the computer, talking to the kids facing her. I scanned the group for TK and did not find him. Then his head appeared in my line of vision, bobbing around the perimeter of the kids’ circle as he ambled about the room. He has never been a fan of circle time, that one–and I’m starting to understand that his movement is a part of his learning, a part of his observing. Because he’s showing me lately that he actually sees it all, and more.

His other teacher spotted me spying and grinned, coming over to the door. She invited me inside as I issued apologies for disturbing the class and explained that I had been watching my boy. She turned back to me. “Let me show you what he’s been doing!” she exclaimed, and it was with a tone not of displeasure but of discovery. She led me to the toy kitchen in a corner of the room and pointed out the microwave door, with its square window cut-out, and demonstrated how TK likes to watch the lesson through the window. “He watches us and sees everything!” she continued, an exclamation point punctuating each remark. “He just wants to see it from there!”

I have prayed, pray daily, for a tenderness within the hearts of those who come into contact with TK, an appreciation of his differences. We did not find it at his former school, which contributed to our getting the hell out. I’m old and cynical enough to know that he will not be met with exclamations at every step; that not every face that greets his will light up as if happening upon a new land. But I’ll be damned if I don’t look for these people and hold on to them when they show up. And I’ll be damned if I don’t remind myself each moment to be one of them myself. I’ll be damned if I do anything but celebrate him for who he is.

Speaking of celebrating–that was Friday, which is a great day to open a bottle of champagne, and that’s what I did that evening. The Friday before had consisted of wall-hitting and frustration. But this week? This week was different. This week was getting down on the floor behind him, facing the direction he faced, and seeing the things he saw. This week was a glass of sparkling and a glass of red–because sometimes I do my best work two glasses of shed anxiety in–and the three of us on the closet floor wrestling and going over numbers and opening and closing the doors of his farm and watching the light from the window dance across plastic and wondering why I don’t do this more often–look at the world from his point of view. Because you know what? It’s beautiful down here.

There was a story last week about a mother who was told, moments after delivering him, that her boy twin had died, and her reply was Nope. So she and her husband held him for two hours as the doctors and nurses and the rest of the trained staff stood nearby, whispering and shaking their educated heads, and then. he. MOVED. There are things medicine tells us, and believe me–I’ve read the books and followed the rules and worn the coat. I’ve whispered and shaken my head. I’ve been in that part of the room, in that circle time. Then my boy came along, and with him my new heart and eyes, and the invisible parts of the world opened up and revealed themselves to me as soon as I looked, sometimes just in shadows and glimpses, but enough to let a light in that had never been there before. And I realized that those who tout medicine as the highest virtue or science as a flawless god, as their only, they don’t get to see the rooms of mystery, the view from the cut-out. They don’t get to feel the discomfort of not knowing that comes just before, or sometimes with, the thrill of maybe, the triumph of those first stirrings of life, the warmth returned by a now-beating heart.

That mother who refused to give up on her child, she was just recalcitrant. Until…she was right.

We talk about regrets, but when I look back I know that the moments I wish I’d done differently are the ones when I didn’t trust beyond what I could see. The times when I’d only believed in what I controlled. The experiences when I doubted the goodness of a plan that wasn’t mine. But the treasures, I read, they come in darkness, and the hoards, in secret places. The ways show up in the wilderness–and the rivers, in the deserts. Haven’t I been nourished by the water there? And by nourished, I mean kept alive: heart beating, breath moving.

Down on the floor, behind the body that grew within me, tiny hands opening doors and windows–this is the scene of my conversion. Voiceless, he pulls me by the hand and asks me to see what I can’t. These places: the dimly-lit patches of carpet upon which spill the last embers of sunset; the corners of rooms where few visit; the hospital bed filled with three (count them! THREE!) beating hearts? These places are where life shows up.

I keep getting asked to see what I can’t. And the parts of me that protest, saying the light is too dim or my eyes too weak, they are being quieted and taught and retrained, because I don’t find what is here; it is revealed. Grace leads me by the hand, whispering “let me show you,” and together we venture forward into the mystery.