Myat Nyein - Unexpected Memories

I will wake you up with a song.

SLEEPING BEAUTY

MARGIE BOULE'

At my desk, where I write feature articles for a newspaper, I listen to stories told by readers on the phone all day long.

They suggested article titles for me.

Some want to expose injustices. Others want to make excuses for what they believe is right, or to clarify a problem. The news I hear is rarely good news.

But one day, my friend Susan called. She was a singer. Her husband, Gary, was the choir director at a local high school. Susan told me about a girl named Carly, one of Gary's students, Crystal.

A little girl named Kali was in the intensive care unit at a local children's hospital. It was mid-December. Kali had just undergone brain surgery three days earlier.

The little boy had not opened his eyes or spoken since his brain surgery, and his dark hair, lying on the pillow, framed his pale face. He was neither awake nor asleep.

"The situation is very, very bad."

When I went to interview her, Nancy, Kali's mother, told me about it.

"He had a brain surgery that was not even a little bit risky. A person who has undergone such surgery often goes into a coma or is almost brain dead. No one can say for sure. If you can't wake up a patient like that, you just have to sit and pray that he will come to his senses."

Kali is a child with autism. He has undergone eleven brain surgeries in the span of seven years and is still struggling to live. After the last surgery, he has lost consciousness.

One day in December, Nancy was at Carly's bedside. She heard the music of Gary's band, which was playing relaxing songs to the critically ill patients. She thought that Carly loved music.

“We were singing a song when a woman came up and tapped me on the shoulder,” Crystal later told me. Crystal was a seventeen-year-old senior in high school.

“I was standing in the back row. The woman said, ‘Daughter, come with me and sing for Daw Daw’s little girl.’ So I followed her.”

What Crystal saw was a skinny little girl connected to a lot of equipment. She looked like she was sleeping.

“From the moment I walked into that room, I had this feeling that I should be in this room,” Crystal said.

Normally, Crystal would have refused to sing alone. She had only been taking singing lessons with Susan for a few months.

“Her voice is so sweet,” Susan told me. “But Crystal doesn’t sing solo very often. She’s very shy.”

That day, Crystal didn’t hesitate. She stood close to her little girl’s bed and began singing “Silent Night.” The nurses came into the room to see them. The other members of the choir, who had been performing along the corridor, had finished their performance and were heading back to the waiting school bus. Crystal, worried that she would be left behind, continued the song, “Some Children See God the Father.”

“That song is about children, and this little girl is so young,” Crystal said. “I tried my best to make her feel at ease, and she repeated the lyrics deliberately for her, and I felt like she was trying to listen to my song.”

Then Kali opened her eyes. “She opened her eyes. And then her retinas went black and her eyes went dark. And then her face turned into a big smile. And at that moment, everyone around her started crying,” her mother, Nancy, recalled.

Everyone was crying except for Crystal. Crystal didn't want to cry. She kept singing.

As he finished singing, Nancy took a picture of Crystal standing next to the bed. Crystal looked up to see her teacher, Gary, smiling at her from the doorway. It was time for them to go home.

Within hours of Crystal's return, Callie was fully awake. Those who witnessed the entire ordeal attributed it to the power of Christmas. But unless a completely unexpected coincidence occurred, Crystal would never have known the consequences of the song she had sung.

A nurse on duty in an intensive care unit was so moved by the sight she saw that she wrote about it in her Christmas newsletter. She then sent the newsletter to her friends along with Christmas cards.

Coincidentally, one of his friends happens to be a teacher at the school where Gary leads the music group. The teacher read the story and called Gary to tell him.

“That’s when we realized that Crystal’s song was having such a positive effect,” Gary said. | Neither Crystal nor Gary knew that Carly was in a coma. They thought the little girl was just sleeping. My friend Susan immediately called Crystal. She had good news about how much she had helped little Carly in the past few days.

"I can't believe it, don't tell me I'm so happy. I'm jumping for joy, you know. I want to go and sing to him again."

"Christel told me later."

So they made plans on the phone. On Christmas Eve, Crystal went to Kali's bedside in the hospital. That day was also a sad and beautiful day.

"I'm so sorry for the pain you're feeling, Kali."

Nancy said to Crystal.