Youth not wasted on this tot

Having lived and worked in this community for 20 years, I’ve met a lot of people of various levels of intellect and character.

But every once in a while someone still sidles up beside me and causes me to pause with wonder.

Most recently, it was Michaela White of Orrington. She spoke to me with ease. We shared a few laughs, discussed her position on religion and the big-bang theory. We talked of good and bad marketing techniques, our favorite books and about her latest passion, which is teaching herself to play the piano by ear.

We talked about her outlook on a life that hasn’t always been easy and where she finds her strength to stay upbeat even when the waters are rough.

When I told her I’d like to discuss her in my column, she was, as she put it, “terribly overwhelmed.”

So pardon me for a moment while I take a brief break from picking on school superintendents, legislators, drug policies and mental health initiatives.

Today I’d like you to meet Michaela.

Michaela turned 6 in January.

Adopted from China in 2002 by Sheryl White, Michaela had spent most of her time swaddled in a crib. When she finally came to Maine at 1 year old, she could not sit up or roll over. After months of physical, occupational and speech therapy, Michaela finally walked at the age of 2 and began to speak about six months later.

“My mom says I haven’t stopped since,” she says with a giggle as she dips a gooey mozzarella stick into a dish of marinara sauce.

Michaela is truly a child whose presence instantly changes the dynamics of a room. She speaks to adults in a way foreign to youngsters of almost any age. She initiates conversation, makes sincere eye contact and can discuss almost any subject with meaning and true intellect. She often leaves a roomful of adults in awe, having just explained her thoughts on good literature, and hops on one foot out the door.

“I really have to be careful,” Sheryl, who is raising Michaela alone, said recently. “I often have to remind myself that I’m the mother and she’s the daughter, because so often when we converse it’s like two adults. For example, sometimes she’ll tell me a better way to complete a task. Usually she’s right, but still I don’t think that’s always appropriate.”

Sheryl recently made the decision to pull Michaela out of the public school system – a decision she struggled with but is satisfied with today.

As exciting as life is with Michaela, there are still worries, the biggest being her eyesight. When she was 3 years old and in preschool, a routine vision screening revealed that Michaela was completely blind in her right eye. Since then she has worn a patch over the eye, hoping it would at best increase the strength in the left eye or at least stop the vision from deteriorating. But a recent trip to the ophthalmologist indicated the vision in the left eye was getting worse.

“She’s blind in the right, has absolutely no depth perception and has vision of 20-100 in the left eye,” her mom said.

“I’m blind in one eye, but I can run as fast as can be,” Michaela shouts out quickly.

Sheryl, who at 48 has the hearing of a 90-year-old and wears hearing aids in both ears, says with a chuckle, “Michaela told me that everything would be OK because I could see for her and she could hear for me.”

But enough about that. Michaela notices me writing in my notebook.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

“Notes about you,” I replied.

“Boy, you are really burning through that notebook. Kind of like the way me and my mom are burning through the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books at home,” she said.

“What do you think I should say about you?” I asked.

“You could say that I can jump on one foot really well. I can run around the church near our house really fast. Princesses? LOVE ’em. I hope to marry a boy one day so that he can help me button up the back of my dresses, and I love my mom,” she stated as she reached for another mozzarella stick.

She’s also none too sure about the recent decision to kick Pluto out of the planet lineup, but she’s interested in people’s opinions on the subject.

Not too long ago Michaela struggled to learn to whistle. She kept at it, like she does with anything she wants to learn, and this week blew out a little whistle for me.

“It would be OK if you couldn’t whistle,” she says with a shrug. “Because my favorite instrument is the flute because it sounds so pretty, and if you can’t whistle you could just pick up a flute and whistle all you want.”

And that may just be Michaela’s secret to her upbeat look at life.

“My mom’s trying to get me to stop sucking my thumb,” she said earlier, leaning over the table.

“How’s that working?” I asked.

“OK sometimes. They say that the kids would start calling me Bucky if I don’t stop. I said that was OK as long as they called me Princess Bucky,” she said, giggling. “I try very hard, but it brings me so much comfort.”

The interview is drawing to a close. What’s left of the mozzarella sticks are cold and Michaela is tired. With a brief apology, Michaela lies down, pops her thumb in her mouth and dozes off.

Renee Ordway can be contacted at rordway@bangordailynews.net.