Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived
Transformative lessons in life learnt through a remarkable three-year-old girl's battle with cancer. From Hannah's story emerge five profound lessons – of truth, joy, faith, compassion and wonder – that have the power to change our lives.Every once in a while a book comes along that can change your life – a book so special, it is destined not just to be read but to be cherished, to be passed from one reader to another as a precious gift. Filled with wisdom and grace, tears and laughter, Hannah's Gift is one such book. Maria Housden shares the transformative lessons in living she received from her three-year-old daughter Hannah, who brought courage, honesty and joy to her struggle with cancer.During the last year of her short life, Hannah was fearless in the way she faced death – and irrepressibly joyful in the way she approached living. The little girl who wore her favourite red shoes into the operating theatre changed the life of everyone who came in contact with her. Now, in a book that preserves Hannah's indomitable spirit, Maria Housden offers the gift of her daughter's last year to all of us. In a lyrically told narrative, both moving and unforgettable, Housden recounts Hannah's battle with cancer in simple, straightforward language that transcends grief and fear to become a celebration.Hannah's Gift nourishes the soul with an ageless wisdom all the more invaluable for having come from someone so young. A remarkable story, remarkably told, it will bring comfort to anyone touched by loss and renewed faith in the power of love.
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Hannah’s Gift
Lessons from a Life Fully Lived
MARIA HOUSDEN
I dedicate this book toWill, Hannah, Margaret, and Madelainewith gratitude and love.
…Walk slowly now, small soul, by the edge of the water. Choose carefully all you are going to lose, though any of it would do.
—Jane Hirshfield
Contents
Dr. Truth Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Denial
Communion with Dr. Tomato-head
Change of Mind, Change of Heart
… And the Cow Jumped over the Moon
The Red Shoes
LOOKING BACK, I REALIZE THAT MY WHOLE LIFE PIVOTS silently around this single moment: I was standing in a Stride-Rite children’s shoe store, wondering which pair of shoes to buy. Black or blue leather would coordinate with every outfit in Hannah’s preschool wardrobe. I held up one shoe in each color and asked, “Which one do you prefer?”
Hannah had already decided.
“These are my shoes,” she declared, holding up a pair of red patent leather Mary Janes.
I smiled patiently.
“Hannah, I can only afford to buy one pair of shoes today. Those are lovely, but they’re just not practical. We need to buy something that will match the dresses in your closet.”
“But Mommy,” she protested, “red shoes go with everything. Besides,” she added, slipping her feet into the display pair, three sizes too big for her, “they fit me just perfect!!!”
The saleswoman, overhearing the conversation, laughed.
“What do you think, Mom?” the woman asked. “Should I see if we have a smaller size in the back?”
I hesitated. Saving money and making sure my children were properly dressed were things that really mattered to me. Yet something about the expectant joy on Hannah’s face lodged the automatic “no” into the back of my throat.
“Yes, why don’t you check in the back,” I said.
Hannah squealed and jumped up and down. When the woman returned, Hannah slid her feet into the shoes. This time, they were a perfect fit. “Just like Cinderella!” Hannah whispered. Walking primly to the mirror, she stood for a moment, transfixed, staring at the image of the shoes on her feet. She turned to me.
“I’d better test them out,” she said, tapping the toe of one shoe on the carpeted floor. Not satisfied, she headed for the entrance to the store. The saleswoman and I followed. As soon as Hannah stepped into the atrium of the mall, the sound of the red shoes on the hardwood floor stopped her in her tracks. Pausing, she clicked the heel of one foot and then the other. She looked up, grinning, to see if I had heard. I smiled and nodded encouragingly.
Closing her eyes and extending her arms, Hannah began to dance. Oblivious to everything but the shoes on her feet, she skipped and clicked across the floor, twirling in circles, faster and faster. Her pure delight and the defiant flash of the red shoes caught everyone’s attention.
People who passed smiled first at Hannah, then at each other. Some stopped to watch; a few children and an elderly man joined in. One woman, her arms full of shopping bags, turned to the woman next to her. “I’ve always wanted a pair of red shoes,” she said. “Me, too,” said the other. “What have we been waiting for?”
Hannah finished her performance by falling in a dramatic heap on the floor. Those who were still watching applauded and cheered. Hannah stood up, smoothed the front of her dress, and adjusted the bow in her hair.
“Mommy,” she said, turning to me, “I think these are my shoes, don’t you?”
THE TRUEST MEASURE of a life is not its length, but the fullness in which it is lived.
When my daughter Hannah was diagnosed with cancer, one month before her third birthday, everything I had believed about myself and my life was called into question. In the face of the fiercest, most unrelenting truth, I began to look for new answers. Hannah herself became my teacher. Honest, funny, and fearless in the way she lived her life and embraced her death, Hannah opened me to a deeper wisdom, to a more joyful, less fearful way of living.
After Hannah’s death in 1994, I began to write about the journey we had taken together. I struggled to remember every detail, afraid to forget even one. It seemed a hopeless, overwhelming task. I gave up, decided to wait, to let myself grieve and heal. Gradually, I began to see that the story was still unfolding; rather than ending with Hannah’s death, it had only begun. Now, seven years later, there are certain memories—brief moments that may have taken place weeks or months apart—that stand out in bright relief against the background of my days; moments that continue to live in me because they are still teaching me.
