Talaal’s New Smile

Today, Talaal, an infant from Jordan was discharged from the hospital and a couple members of the Jordan team escorted Talaal and his family home to see the reaction of family members to Talaal’s dramatic change. The parents packed up at the hospital after receiving gifts and then drove the half hour to their apartment in an Amman neighborhood. Their whole family lives there – each family has an apartment on a different floor and the entire family fills the 5 story apartment building.

As we entered the apartment, Talaal’s mother Areej hurried into the kitchen to prepare a welcome meal. We spent time with Talaal and his older brother Zeid and spoke to his father about the impact of Talaal’s surgery. It was remarkable to see how quickly Talaal was healing. He was drinking from a bottle the first time in his life and sitting up and cooing and watching everything around him. You could tell how happy he was to be home. We sat down for tea and hummus and before long Talaal’s grandmother showed up to see the baby. She beamed when she saw his cleft lip whole for the first time, and thanked us and the doctors. She lamented not knowing that we were coming saying she would have baked us treats.

As we got ready to leave, we asked Areej who she was most excited to see the baby. “His brother,” she replied. Talaal’s other brother is a first-grader who would not play with the baby and told his mom he wanted nothing to do with him because he did not look like the other children. We all recalled how sad Areej had seemed the day before at the hospital. The entire time she was there, through the screening and the surgery, none of us had seen her smile. Throughout this visit, her happiness was so evident that her smile lit up the room.

- Jennifer Devlin, Operation Smile volunteer