Special parents

[Guest guest]

This was posted on another list I'm on & I thought it was so good, I

just had to share it.

Here is to all you wonderful parents out there!

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Mothers of children with disabilities worthy of praise

By Lori Borgman Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

Expectant mothers waiting for a newborn's arrival say they don't

care what sex the baby is. They just want it to have ten fingers and

ten toes.

Mothers lie.

Every mother wants so much more. She wants a perfectly healthy baby

with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and

satin skin. She wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the

Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

She wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first

steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on

page 57, column two).

Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire

neurons by the billions.

She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe

points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed

if you want, but a mother wants what a mother wants. Some mothers

get babies with something more.

Maybe you're one who got a baby with a condition you couldn't

pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a

palette that didn't close. The doctor's words took your breath away.

It was just like the time at recess in the fourth

grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the

wind right out of you.

Some of you left the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months,

even years later, took him in for a routine visit, or scheduled her

for a well check, and crashed head first into a brick wall as you

bore the brunt of devastating news.

It didn't seem possible. That didn't run in your family. Could this

really be happening in your lifetime?

I watch the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted

bodies. It's not a lust thing, it's a wondrous thing. They appear as

specimens without flaw -- muscles, strength and coordination all

working in perfect harmony.

Then an athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the

contents and pulls out an inhaler.

There's no such thing as a perfect body. Everybody will bear

something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be

apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly

treated with trips to the doctor, therapy or

surgery. Mothers of children with disabilities live the limitations

with them.

ly, I don't know how you do it. Sometimes you mothers scare me.

How you lift that kid in and out of the wheelchair twenty times a

day. How you monitor tests, track medications, and serve as the

gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, the well-

intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've

occasionally questioned if God is on strike.

I even wonder how you endure chmaltzy columns like this one --

saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're

ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for

this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line

yelling, " Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes. "

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in

perspective, so let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way

ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse

while holding onto the delicacy of a

daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box

in July, counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.

You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a

disability. You're a neighbour, a friend, a woman I pass at church

and my sister-in-law. You're a wonder.