Saturday, February 7, 1998

Sick child an inspiration

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The first things you notice about 7-year-old Michael McDaris are his chubby cheeks and faint mustache, both the result of medicine meant to save his life.

But what you observe after spending time with Michael is more memorable. It's the calmness that fills his room at Presbyterian Hospital. You might expect tears or whining from a child facing death from a blood disorder. You might expect fidgeting or fear after being in and out of hospitals -- in, mostly -- since he was 2.

What you get instead are a stoic smile and an inspiring quiet. In the hour we spent together, all he did was fiddle with a video game, give thanks for his McDonald's biscuit and say he's not crazy about returning to frozen Minnesota for another bone marrow transplant.

Diana McDaris said Michael -- "My sweet love" she calls him -- is at ease with illness because illness is his life: "He doesn't know what it is to be a normal child."

She's right. But maybe there's more to it. Maybe Michael is a living symbol of grace because God made him that way, to serve as an example for the rest of us.

Michael suffers from aplastic anemia, which prevents his bone marrow from producing red blood cells. The Mint Hill, N.C., family received the diagnosis four days before Christmas 1992 and has been dealing with it ever since.

He has had 400 blood transfusions, spent seven months in Minneapolis undergoing one bone marrow transplant that didn't work and is back at Fairview University Medical Center for a second.

"I don't want to go up there," he told me, quickly adding, "But it's OK."

His is a world of yellow surgical masks, "Get Well" balloons and nurses coming to poke and prod. But as long as he knows what's coming, Michael can live with it.

"He endures," said Diana McDaris. "As long as he's prepared and he knows mama and papa will be there, he can handle anything."

Presbyterian Hospital's Frances Friedman, who works with ill children and their families, called to say I had to meet this rare child.

"To me," Friedman said, "what makes him special is he hasn't let his illness take away from his life. He never asks for a lot. He doesn't say, I'm sick, so gimme, gimme.' "

Friedman's poignant endorsement rang in my ears as I put on my surgical mask -- Michael dare not catch any germs -- and stepped inside his hospital room.

Few 7-year-old first-graders (he attends Charlotte Lutheran School) can be described as being at peace. But that's the impression I got. As his mother and father, Mike, a stonemason, chatted about the trip to Minnesota, he lay and listened. This child of 64 inches and 48 pounds exuded a feeling of what will be will be.

In a moment, Michael asked his mama when they'll be home from Minnesota. In time to eat the plums from the tree in the yard, she answered. He smiled as I said goodbye and good luck. Then he went back to doing what God has allowed him to do best. Endure.

I walked out of the hospital knowing that whatever happens now, Michael has already left his mark on this world. He gave us someone to be like.

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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