He Talks!

I bet you are all anxiously awaiting an update………sorry we’ve been too busy to write!

We had a very exciting Christmas with Charbel…and we witnessed a great development.

Let me start off by saying that Charbel stayed over for three nights in a row. He came home on the 24th and he stayed over that night as planned – and then the next two nights he didn’t want to go back to the hospital! We had a great time watching movies and hanging out together just like the old days.

Charb also had a lot of visitors, both friends and family, most of whom he easily recognized. He was especially happy to see his Aunt Laila who had spent many hours with him when he was back in Halifax at the QEII. On Christmas day we opened presents, and had a family lunch with our aunt and her kids as well as Father Aoukar who performed a special Christmas Mass for Charb and gave him the communion.

Now, on to the great news:

On Christmas Eve when mom was at the hospital preparing Charb to come home, she heard him call her by saying “mom”. When she came home she was excited to tell us the story and we all prayed that Charbel would talk for Christmas. The next day, I was sitting with Charb trying to get him to make noises, and realizing that his was very difficult for him, I asked him to simply mouth the words if he could. I asked him to mouth “mama” and “baba”, which to my surprise he did. The rest of that day he more mouth movements, and some sounds, but nothing that was recognizable speech. Then on Boxing Day we work up and went to see Charb who had been with mom and dad. We learned from them that Charbel had been saying words that morning: he said Habibi – the Arabic word for ‘my darling’. We asked him to say it again, and sure enough, in a low whisper we heard him say ‘habibi’

I’m not exactly sure how it progressed from there because we were too excited, but sure enough, we asked him to say some words and he did! Eventually we started asking him addition questions and he was whispering the answers. Then he counted to 10, and then to 20! Simply amazing. When we asked him “who is awesome” he responded with a big loud “ana” which means “me” in Arabic.

Later mom had the phone to call our grandfather in B.C. and she asked Charb what he would say to him, Charb responded “HI” loud and clear. Best of all, later that day mom asked Charb what he wanted to eat – he responded – “I want pudding!” His first sentence! Mom went screaming with excitement to dad who asked Charb again what he wanted to eat, and he replied – “Anything!”

Today Charbel was using his voice even more than yesterday. Today he recited the entire alphabet, counted by 2’s and 5’s, spelled his name (first and last), and named several objects that I put in his hand. He also told mom he wanted to eat a “sandwich” and when asked what kind, he said “meat” - good old Charb, some things never change!

We are very excited to be able to share this news with you…

Charb’s voice is still weak and shaky but he can use it to communicate with us now, which is absolutely wonderful. I hope that each day he will get louder and louder!

Keep praying, hoping, and sending inspirational messages, these things - along with all of Charbel’s hard work and determination – are the ingredients of miracles.

Lots of love to you all!


Check out some pictures of Charbel over Christmas and video clips of his new-found voice!

http://picasaweb.google.com/rachelra/Christmas2006