I excelled in his class. One day he asked me if I wanted to help him grade papers, file and do some office work — a teacher’s aide of sorts. There was no need to ask me twice. As the weeks passed, we shared lots of time together. I learned how to drink coffee over long philosophical conversations. We became friends. Much to my surprise, out of the blue, he asked me if I would consider doing some baby-sitting for him.

I arrived at his house promptly at six. He greeted me at the door. “Thank you so much for doing this. It’s very important to me.” He explained that his wife was taking care of her ailing mother and had taken their eight-month-old baby with her.

Lily, their six-year-old, needed special care, and he was hoping to find someone who would click with her. “Lily has cystic fibrosis and spends too much of her little life in bed.” My heart just broke as I saw the love he had in his eyes for his little girl.

He took me into her room and, in the middle of a princess bed, sat this fair-haired little angel. She had some sort of breathing apparatus next to her bed. “This is the girl I told you about, Sweetie,” he signed to his daughter. It turned out that Lily was deaf as well. I panicked. How would I communicate with her?

“Her oral skills are good enough that you will be able to understand her, and you’ll probably pick up some sign language. I’ll only be gone a couple of hours.” He left me with emergency numbers and pertinent information, and then he was gone. —Beliefnet.com