Sometimes the feeling to write what's on my mind is too strong and it won't go away until
I put it down.
Today was one of those times.
Not long ago I was shopping at Target in Twin Falls. A lot of the time when I go,
I seem to go on the day that the care facilities for the people with mental disabilities bring their residents shopping.
As a mother of a child with a severe mental disability that is obvious the minute you see my son,
I am always interested in the way that the public interacts with them.
Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, and sometimes I'm disappointed.
I am always amazed at how young people seem to view them as just another shopper, while the generations that didn't go to school with a person with a mental impairment because most were housed in a state run institution don't seem to know how to act around them.
Some seem uncomfortable, others avoid the situation all together by taking another route in the store, and some are simply wonderful and warm and take the time to say hello or nod and smile at the individual.
Several years ago I was appointed by the governor of Idaho to be on a state council for children with disabilities as a parent representative. I served alongside educators, heath care professionals, and state representatives who's job it was to better the lives of those Idahoans with mental and physical disabilities.
We worked to ensure that their rights as citizens were protected and that they received those
services that would enable them to thrive in our state and in our country and in our world.
My dreams were huge then. I saw a world that would embrace them and love them
the way I did my son. I have seen miracles happen in my community because my son was able to attend a public school. I watched the barriers come down with the inclusion of my son, who at the time was the only child with any kind of disability in our town of then 400 souls.
Children can be so understanding once the know the 'whys' of differences. Several years that Landon attended school, some of the teachers would have me come into their classrooms when the new year began and tell the little ones a few things about Landon and what made him different than them.
I told them about his likes and his dislikes. I would explain little things that they could understand like why he drooled and why he would stare at the back of his hand when someone would talk to him. I told them that his favorite food was tater tots and that he didn't like meat. They 'got' it, they 'got' him!
The day that Landon graduated, he got a standing ovation from the entire school K-12. Dale and I were asked to say a few words at that time. I told the student body how thankful I was to them for being so respectful and protective of Landon. I told them that when I was told by our doctors that Landon would never be as other children were, my biggest fear had been that he would not be valued as a person. That he would be seen like a couple of the doctors who had diagnosed him saw him. A child that wouldn't be worth our trouble to raise. That would drain the energy we should be using to care for our other five children at home. I thanked the students for seeing beyond what is thought of as normal behavior and seeing the person. The person that had the right to have friends and feel loved and valued by his peers.
Sometimes when I see a stand of dandelions, I wonder if this is how some
view people with mental impairments.
A substandard flower in God's garden.
I am now thankful for the people that were put in my path when I was younger that I believe
helped prepare me to become Landon's mother.
As a child growing up in the city of Boise, I remember a little girl on our block
who had a severe disability. I also remember how devoted and loving her mother seemed to be towards
her, and that made a big impact on me. I never went and said hello to her or her mother.
I never asked her mother what her little girl liked to do or what her favorite food was.
You see...I saw her as a dandelion because she couldn't do the things I could do.
I also remember riding the the bus to school with a boy who had been severely burned and was missing
his ears and nose and eyelids. I don't think he was in my life by accident, I believe he was in my life to prepare me. I would sit near him on the bus and say goodbye to him when we got to his stop.
I went to high school with a boy who had cerebral palsy. He was a kind boy, who walked with a gate that I found odd.
But by this time I was starting to see them as me,
more the same than different.
Not dandelions at all.
I believe that they were put in my life for a reason.
I was being prepared for the hardest challenge of my life.
My own beautiful flower.
My own 'little different', but more 'the same'.
In the beginning, his syndrome wasn't obvious, but as he aged and didn't meet milestones, it became
heartbreakingly obvious that he would have severe impairments in both body and mind.
He started to look different and when he did, people would stare. Most people don't mean to be unkind.
Some do.
I have had so many...
'kids like those'
'how long is he going to live?'
'there are places for people like that' (mostly doctors) a few friends))
'you must be a saint' (I assure you...a saint I ain't)
and I could go on, but won't because even with some of the hurtful comments I have had spoken to me,
I understand that most have never been said to cause me pain.
It is because of lack of understanding.
Maybe they thought of my son as a dandelion like I did the little girl on my
block when I was growing up.
There have been hard times. There have been things I would never
ever want to live through again.
There are things I can't even think about to this day or I would start crying and never stop.
But after a time of grieving
comes the gift!
I have likened this experience to hiking a mountain trail. A rough trail. A trail not traveled by many.
And along this trail, in the distance, is a highway.
On the highway are many, many people going about life at the speed of light.
I am picking along the trail, moving brush and rocks as I need to.
Sometimes I get so tired I want to turn back.
Sometimes I want so badly to make my way to the highway and catch a ride far away from where I am.
But along this trail is beauty everywhere I look. Beauty that takes your breath away.
Beauty that so few get to see unless you travel slow and look hard to take it all in.
Things that I would miss if I were on the highway.
Things I wouldn't feel if I weren't on the narrow, rough trail.
When I get tired and discouraged I think of all the others that are on this trail with me.
I am not alone. I am not the only person traveling this rocky yet beautiful path.
And
I am traveling this road with my son. I am envisioning the person he will be when we pass from this life.
I think of him taking me in his arms and thanking me for loving him, for caring for him, for giving him life,
and for thinking of him as the most beautiful flower in my garden.
Not a dandelion at all!!!
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