Macy Moon: The Family Encourager
Contributed by Josslyn Ervin, Incoming Freshman
When Macy Moon Elizabeth Howell arrived on July 6, 2016, she was a tiny baby, full of joy. Born at twenty-nine weeks, she weighed three pounds, two ounces, and was seventeen inches long. Two weeks later, Graham and Libby Howell stood together before a crib. They were about to meet Macy for the first time. The nurse removed the blanket, allowing them to see the dark-haired little one curled up inside, the baby girl they would soon adopt. As Libby said, “Immediately, we were in love with her.” They began the adoption process that week.
Five weeks later, she was diagnosed with periventricular leukomalacia, an injury causing holes in the brain. When she was nine months old, doctors gave a more definitive diagnosis: Macy had cerebral palsy (CP). CP covers a wide spectrum of early brain damage and varies in its effects and severity. Macy’s case is unique. Her muscles are both spastic and dystonic. Spasticity causes muscle resistance, and dystonia causes twisting, involuntary, and sometimes painful movements. She is also triplegic, which means that three of her limbs are paralyzed. While her legs can support some weight and help her to roll over, they are mostly unusable. She has no fine motor skills in her right arm, and limited control of her left arm. And though it might be hard to tell, she only focuses with one beautiful dark hazel eye at a time.
A doctor and the adoption agency implied that Graham and Libby could discontinue the process to officially make her their child, but they didn’t consider it for a second. “We knew at that point already that this was our daughter,” Libby said. They pushed forward and accepted the challenge.
In the beginning, doctors permitted Graham and Libby to hold Macy for fifteen minutes at a time. They used that precious time to sing and pray over their child. Libby sang the hymn “Come Thou Fount” over Macy every day during the six weeks the little family spent in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). She shared, “Words like ‘Tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise,’ reminded our hearts and minds that Macy’s story was written long before we even knew about her, and it’s in His goodness that He gave her to us to raise.” By the time they took her home, she had gone through the difficulty that comes with a feeding tube as well as numerous Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans and stomach X-rays.
They didn’t know it at first, but God had been working behind the scenes to bring them and Macy together. Her neighbor in the NICU was the child of a Christian couple who Graham knew; they had been there in the NICU before Macy’s birth and had been covering her in prayer ever since they met her.
In some cases, when parents put up their child for adoption, they get to decide who may adopt them. Potential parents often put together photo albums to showcase their qualifications for raising a child. Macy’s birthparents lived near one of Libby’s former coworkers and his wife, a couple named Jeremy and Amber, who were also expecting. After the young woman chose the Howells to adopt her baby, she showed her neighbors their book and expressed that all she wanted was for her daughter to be loved. Jeremy reached out to Libby right away to tell her the story.
When Jeremy and Amber found out that their young neighbor and his girlfriend were struggling, they felt led to love them. Unmarried and at only eighteen and nineteen years old, they were expecting a baby. When the young woman started considering having an abortion, Jeremy and Amber stood up for the child’s life and started helping in every way they could. They drove her to prenatal appointments and encouraged her to choose life. Each week, their church prayed for the mother and child and donated supplies. Shortly after Amber gave birth, Macy’s birth mother went into labor, and Jeremy took her to the hospital.
The births happened so close together that the same group of nurses that delivered Amber’s baby was there for Macy. Most of them were Christians. At first, they wondered why this man had brought in two women in the same day, but when he told them the story, they understood. Many of them prayed for Macy, and the nurse who caught her placed a Bible verse on her crib, which Graham and Libby were able to see when they visited her.
On March 9, 2017, nine months after Macy’s birth, Graham and Libby stood before a judge and vowed to care for her as their daughter. It had been a long time coming. “Just knowing how intentional her life was even before we were able to parent her started us off on a really strong foundation and it just kind of kept going,” Libby said.
While there is no known cure for CP, surgeries, therapy, and habits can help alleviate some of the effects. At three years old, she had an eye surgery to help her see better. She still bears the scars of the hip reconstruction surgery she endured at age five, which included taking bone from her femur and placing an extended hip socket to keep her hips from dislocating. Recovery was rough. For several months, the pain kept her from sleeping much, and her parents stayed with her through the night. She does physical therapy, horseback riding, swimming, occupational therapy, and speech. As for habits, just like with any other human being, sunshine, a balanced diet, laughter, and a loving environment make her life better.
Graham and Libby are also the parents of three boys – Macy’s younger brothers. She isn’t just their sister. She’s also their play director, cheerleader, chauffeur and more. The Howell children’s past productions include imaginative versions of Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, and Prince Caspian. She cheers the twins on when they have t-ball and soccer games, calling out encouragement to them on the field. And the title of chauffeur comes from her willingness to let her brothers ride on the back of her power chair. “I like giving them rides,” she told me as one of them hopped up and she casually drove away.
The six-year-old twins help her and the three-year-old makes her laugh. She often makes tenderhearted statements about her brothers, gushing about the three-year-old’s cuteness and praising the six-year-olds for their kindness. Libby noted, “She makes them a bit more empathetic, and they are just sweet and loving to her, and also toughen her up a bit too, I mean because they’re annoying brothers.” They enjoy playing imaginative games together and giving gifts, like the color-by-number that one of the twins made for Macy a few weeks ago, and the bracelets she likes to make for friends and family. All four of the children are being taught to love and serve others.
Perhaps this is why Macy, even though she has suffered more than any other child I know, is seldom miserable. According to secular culture, she should wallow in self-pity. But by leaning on God’s strength, her parents are raising her to be kind, considerate, creative, and grateful. She may not be able to physically help her family with their work, but she can provide them with encouragement. In fact, lately she has been dubbed “The Family Encourager.” And despite the obstacles, her parents take the time to teach her to stir cookie batter, cut up a banana, and put jam on her own toast. Macy partakes in work, play, and laughter.
She may never be able to comprehend how much her parents have done for her purely out of love. How can any of us truly know what our parents have sacrificed for us? Raising a child with CP takes a heavy financial, emotional, spiritual, and physical toll, but Graham and Libby don’t complain. They instead praise God for the privilege of bringing up Macy Moon. What the world calls a burden they rejoice in as a blessing. When I asked Graham and Libby what Scripture passages have helped them in raising Macy, they drew attention to Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” (KJV). “Our theology changed a lot when we adopted Macy. We realized we truly needed to understand the character of God to reconcile the hardship and suffering we saw Macy experience. So while there were many verses that would bring comfort, we benefitted the most from realizing the constancy of God’s sovereignty, love, and grace. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Living on a homestead in rural South Carolina, Macy has plenty of opportunities to spend time outside. She likes watching and naming the chickens, playing with the water table with her brothers in the summertime, and watching the clouds while lying on the trampoline. She gets excited about trying new things, from crafts to books to unexplored places.
One day, Macy and I were sitting on the back porch, about to begin her math lesson. “Look how blue the sky is!” I pointed out. Without missing a beat, she replied, “Like only God can make it.” She is a friend to all birds, flowers, and butterflies. “Plants need sunshine, water, and lots of love,” she once observed candidly as we drove by a spray of wildflowers. She enjoys watering the planter on the front porch with her green watering can, watching a small potted plant grow on her windowsill, and paying attention to the birds that alight in the flower bed.
The four siblings play games together like Hide and Go Seek, Red Light Green Light, and Mother May I. Macy’s powerchair allows her to participate, and she does so with gusto. When competing with the boys, she gives her very best and tries with all her might. Her three brothers care for her and gloss over necessary exceptions when they play together. Sometimes they graciously ignore her mischievous giggles when she’s hiding during Hide and Seek and can’t contain her mirth.
Her brothers are better than other children at including her in their play. It isn’t always easy for a group of kids to find something to do that’s wheelchair-friendly, and Macy deals with the physical as well as social difficulties that a wheelchair brings. Her power chair, which she started using full-time last year, is a huge blessing, and gives her a bit more independence.
Despite her struggles, Macy is joyful, grateful, creative, and generally a lovely person to be around. Her mother called her “A little beacon of joy.” Her circumstances don’t keep her from being sunshiny (although she certainly is not a morning person.) She encourages others. Last year, when I was about to get my wisdom teeth out, this little girl – who had been through multiple surgeries far worse than the one that I had – told me to “Be brave.”
A lover of stories, Macy regularly whips out new words and expressions that she’s heard in books. It might be “singing a tune” one day and “oh biscuits” the next. Who knows if it came from Lamplighter Theatre, the Boxcar Children, or Understood Betsy? She makes her family members laugh with her when she tries the new words out.
Macy pulls songs out of thin air, and there’s no way to tell what inspires her to start singing at any given moment. When she sings a new song to the Lord, she could just be hanging out in the house, or outside, surrounded by trees and sky. She dictates stories and poems featuring wild animals, historical figures, and her own family, all tossed together higgledy-piggledy and sparkling with whimsy. With pencils and crayons she draws pictures and practices writing letters. Often, she creates these drawings to give to other people.
Creativity clearly benefits Macy, and her parents encourage the trait in all their children. They don’t stress over paper cuttings and broken crayons, but let the kids doodle and tinker, knowing that it may very well all be worth it one day.
Even though Macy is only eight years old, we can learn more from her than she knows. Love, generosity, creativity, laughter, and fresh air are wholesome medicine. God’s grace is sufficient in our trials, and He gives us the strength we need. As Libby said, “I know that the parts that were hard were easy through Christ.” The Howells are not only enduring hardship, they are creating a beautiful life for their family despite the challenges.
Libby stated, “The most important value we pray she will carry well is contentment. We teach her that God doesn’t make mistakes, that her life is purposeful, and that she is loved by her Creator (and of course, her parents and little brothers.) She has a lot of heavenly joy and is not prone to complaining or grumbling. She knows that oftentimes pain has purpose, and she often jokes that she can’t wait to beat Dad in a race in heaven.”
I have been Macy’s aide for over a year and am blessed by her testimony and contagious joy. As her father pointed out, her joy is convicting. Despite her struggles, she keeps smiling, so why should a rough day at work make us cranky? She focuses on other people and the beauty of creation, sharing light and laughter with everyone she meets.
