Margaret Airola, 1952, Fairbanks, Texas
Lord – When I was only four, my mother took me to the Airola’s home to give them homemade chocolate chip cookies. Mother warned me that inside the door was their daughter, Margaret, who was laying inside an Iron Lung. Mom said, “It is a big yellow machine. Do not be afraid.” We stepped in the front door. I stood silently beside Margaret who was dependent on the lung to breathe due to polio.
Amidst the horror and bewilderment of the moment what I remembered then and now was the radiant smile on Margaret’s sweet face.
I could never have comprehended that I would later catch polio like her or be in the Iron Lung for a time each day for 5 years.
Little sweet Margaret, the home in which she lived, the Airola dairy, and the Iron Lung which cradled her in its arms, are no longer in the physical. But, beyond the physical, what remains is Margaret’s radiant and everlasting smile.
God, thanks for Margaret’s smile. That was Your gift to me. For in that gift You let me know there are no limits on what Your children can do or face armed with a smile and the power of Your love. Amen
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Jack H. Emmott is a Senior Counsel of Gray, Reed & McGraw, LLP, a 120-lawyer full service firm in Houston, Texas, a Board-Certified Family Law and Master Credentialed Collaborative Law Professional Divorce Attorney, Mediator, Author, Entrepreneur and Inspirational Speaker. For more information about Jack or his latest book, Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love, go to the Bending Angel website.
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