Genetics

Up and up you go

“They who tread the path of labour follow where my feet have trod;
They who work without complaining do the holy will of god”

The hum I heard early in the morning while that young lady was playing on me. She was so quick with her fingers in touching my appropriate keys, although her fifth finger was incurved. Her hands looked unusual. They were short, broad and had only a single palmar crease instead of a ‘Double’’

I looked up in curiosity; it was a neatly drawn round, flat face with the eye borders slanting upwards. She was wearing a thick pair of glasses. I was not sure whether she was looking at me because both her eyes were staring at different angles. She had a small mouth out of which there was occasional protrusion of her tongue. Oh! It was hard to find her tiny ears too. This little lady was not bothered about them all. All she did was to go on and on playing the melody which she enjoyed with endless delight. The only occasional trouble she had been to grasp the strap of her sandles as she had a ‘wide sandle gap’ as they call it.

She was a Down’s baby or the baby with Down’s syndrome. I learned that it was a genetic disorder more common in advanced maternal age. Those who have it are said to have developmental delay, problems in the heart, problems in the food tract and many more.

I knew her brother very well. He looked similar to her and passed away few years ago (or more correctly leaving us alone) due to his heart failing to pump as required.

I am standing in the middle of this house for many years. I have witnessed each and every event which took place and my memory is still sharp about the day of this child’s birth when instead of joy there was a loud cry amongst the members. They were scared anxious and guilty about the word “Down’s”. Cutting the story short they would not have had this child if they new it was ‘she’ to be. They preferred a ‘beautiful’ one with lots of brain matter, health and skill.

Twenty years passed and here is she happiest in the world with a good sense of rhythm and music. She gets up before the sun rises and she never sleeps until others dorse off with their dreams. She knows to keep her self clean, helps her mother in the kitchen and she is a good hand for her father in the garden. Sundays are the days when she spends time with me and birds around stop to hear the sweet music and to get a bit of tips. I would rate her as the best behaved in the town (not favouring for the melodies produced on me).

I bet I would not be crying if I had her as my daughter. I think ‘they’ too understand it now. Why on earth she is known as a Down’s. She is an up, truly far up than the normal ‘normals’. After all I am just a wooden piano, I might not know as much as you all know.

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