Yesterday, Kerri was sitting on our front porch step reading a book to a younger neighborhood friend. I never thought I would see this day happen. Not that I would doubt she would learn to read, which she has done in the past few months. But I never thought she would be completely understood.
You see, Kerri has had a severe phonological speech delay since we adopted her. She is brilliant and has a very advanced vocabulary, but she switches sounds. And that makes it really hard to understand what she is trying to say. In the beginning, we would translate for her, or ask her to point things out and describe them so we could guess what she was trying to tell us.
But after four years of speech therapy, we no longer have to translate or ask for an explanation. And even though she still has a way to go and will be continuing speech therapy for at least the next school year, she can finally make herself understood. She read an entire book to a young child, all by herself. And I sat there, at the ready to translate, but I did not have to.
For us, this is a huge milestone, a reason to celebrate. Kerri has been working hard at speech therapy, we have been practicing every day for years. And now she can finally talk without having to stop and repeat herself, explain or describe what she is trying to convey.
It is moments like yesterday, on our front porch step - when she did something absolutely normal - that make me thankful, and in awe of my little fighter. She does not even realize what a huge achievement this is. And I did not point it out to her. Instead, I just sat there, with my eyes closed, listening to my sweet daughter's voice reading a story. And tried really hard not to cry tears of absolute joy.
Life with Kerri is my miracle.