I Learned A Little Bit About Who I Am

The seminar we attended over the weekend on Inclusive Education was absolutely wonderful. I am so SO glad that I had the opportunity to attend. I learned way more than I even hoped that I would, and reached the saturation point where I just couldn't absorb any more. I learned as much from the other parents there as I did the speakers.

But aside from all the learning about education and sharing about our dear children, I noticed that all the moms there looked old and weary. It was frightening. I'm not talking about age, I'm talking about a look that goes beyond the encroaching crow's feet and silver strands sneaking in. It stemmed directly from the stress of living in this world of the disabled. Of being the primary caregiver for someone who may never outgrow the need for mom to be there. Of fighting for that child's every need, every step he takes in the world. And I wondered if I looked like that, too. And if I don't yet, how long will it be before I am old and weary?

And from these moms, I realized that that very look told the world what they were all about. Imagine, if you will, that someone did your child a grave wrong. You'd go all Mama Bear on them, flailing your arms and gnashing your teeth and ripping the wrong doers limb from limb. And although you'd wish to do so physically, that's exactly what you'd feel like inside. And this is the way we live our lives. We fight to have our children included in regular school classrooms, we fight against prejudice, we fight against bullying, we fight against ignorant doctors... And this constant fighting is a steel thread deep within us that not only makes us old and weary looking, but a formidable foe in the face of a percieved threat. There's little that will intimidate us, because there's so much that will intimidate our children.

And yet, despite the harshness of what was just said, it's that steel thread that holds us together in the tough times. When things get so overwhelming that you think you just can't take it anymore, that steel thread is there inside bolstering you up because you know your child is depending on you to make things right. You cannot fail. It's not an option.

But all this is balanced with a gentleness that goes beyond what an ordinary mom possesses. It's the gentleness born of patience in dealing with the autistic child for the seventeenth day in a row of non-stop tantrums. Of learning not to apologize when your child doesn't meet the world's standards, and yet loving that child to distraction because of it, not in spite of it. Of knowing that your child may never mature into a man or woman but will always be your dear little baby that needs you so, so much. And this gentleness softens that harshness enough to make the world wonder what it is about you that makes you different.

We did not choose this world that we live in, and we're not making the best of it. We're making it the best for our children, and that's even better. I have so much respect for parents of disabled children. It's not an easy life, but the unconditional love that's here is better than any compensation the world could give in return.