The Girl Who Lived

Dec 07, 2016

Posted by: Storie Chastain

Books, Fandom, Fans, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Philosophers / Sorcerers Stone, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling, News

Yesterday, a women named Kelley Benham French uploaded an article to upworthy.com about the most terrifying six months of her life. Her baby girl was born 16 weeks too early, and in critical condition. She only weighed one pound and had to kept in a incubator for the majority of the time. One night, Kelley’s husband pulled out a book that had been important in all of their lives. Kelley’s stepsons had grown up on the stories, it was a source of hope for the family. In that moment, a little piece of hope is what they needed most.

“Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived.”

He needed to say those words. I thought it was strange that he’d chosen the first book in a seven-volume series, a series that totals more than 4,000 pages, for a little girl who might not survive the night.

Kelley even suggested he read something shorter, something simpler. But he kept going. He wanted his little girl to hear the stories of a boy who had great adventures, who could perform magic, who could fly, a boy who lived despite the odds and all because his mother loved him.

Tom, Kelley’s husband, wanted to teach his baby about hope. This baby girl who was on the cusp of death and who couldn’t understand a word that he was saying. He wanted her to know that this was not going to be the end for her.

“Stories are a promise,” Tom told me when he’d had time to think it through. “They are a promise that the ending is worth waiting for.”

Kelley says, that even though her daughter, Juniper, couldn’t understand anything that Tom was saying, she responded to his words. They could tell through the monitor beeping along beside her, when she liked the parts with Hermione, or didn’t like the parts where Hagrid spoke in that rough voice of his. When Tom read to Juniper, her vitals were so much better, her breathing was steady. When he stopped breathing, they dropped drastically, to the point that the nurses would frantically tell him to keep reading.
juniper

 

You’ll be happy to hear, that Juniper made it through those six months. And now, five years later, is a happy little kindergartner.

J.K. Rowling had heard about Juniper on an episode of Radiolab and one day, a box showed up on the French’s doorstep. Kelley waited until Juniper got home to see what was inside the box. Jo had personally sent them brand new copies of the Harry Potter series.

juniper 5

“She loves me,” she said, because she already knew it. She hugged the books tight.

Kelley and Tom published their own book a few months after Jo sent them the package. It’s tells the story of those six months following Juniper’s birth.

Harry is in it, and Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Dobby and all the rest, because they were there with us as surely as the doctors and nurses and God himself.

When the book came out, we mailed one off to Scotland, to Rowling, signed by Juniper:

juniper sign

 

This story shows just how powerful these books really are. All of us have our own experiences with them and each experience is some kind of magical. Whether it was as miraculous as Juniper’s experience, or as common as randomly choosing a book to read as a child. These books are important to us all.

Read the rest of the story and see more pictures of Juniper here.





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.