Giving up on Hopelessness

I wrote this in December 2007. It was a turning point for me in my life, when I realized that all my worry and whining was really getting me nowhere, and only hurting my son...

Giving up on Hopelessness

I have been looking at my situation in the completely wrong way. My son’s disability did not happen to ME – it happened to him. I wonder why I have spent almost six years of my life feeling like the victim of some cruel joke.

I am the parent of a child with a disability. How does this affect my life? My son’s birth changed my entire life, but every time a child comes into a parent’s life there is cataclysmic change. Every child comes with their own set of challenges, and every parent brings their own past experiences into the mix. Why shouldn’t life be shaken to its core at this collision of new life and old wounds? This has nothing to do with disability, and everything to do with parenting, universally.

I have spent too much time looking into the future with fear and a sense of hopelessness for both my son and myself. I have not been fair to either of us.

When I feel hopelessness toward my situation, I am telling myself that I do not have the strength to fight when life gets rough. At one point in my life – not very long ago – this was true. But the experience of being a mother to a disabled child has forced me to find the strength inside of myself to advocate effectively for my child. If I can not find the strength inside of me, it is my job to gather about me the people and resources I needed to become stronger, to gain wisdom, and to transform myself into a woman to be reckoned with. Hopelessness toward my own future is self-centered and defeatist. My son has given me a purpose to find my own unique strengths and abilities, and for this I should be grateful, not resentful. I have spent too long resenting the life I found myself living once my child was born.

If I feel hopelessness for my son, then I am telling him (if only unconsciously) that I have given up on him. And there is never any reason to give up on a child, especially not one who shows as much joy and courage as my son does. His future is nowhere near being set. His disability need not limit him in any way. I find that I have been irresponsible in lowering my expectations for this child when all along I should have been raising them, because my son will need to fight and it is up to me to give him the strength he will need to smash any boulders that block his path in life.

My son has this one issue that troubles me. But this is only one part of him. This part (the disability) gets the most attention; the most intense scrutiny. What I don’t want is for my son to start defining himself in only this one facet of his whole being. I want him to remember that he is an immensely beautiful, wonderful, intelligent child who holds all of the promise within him to be great in this world. He is no less or more than any other child.

The magic of the universe flows through him and all children. Most of us as adults have lost touch with this magic but our children are immersed in it and the magic swims through them. Even if I tried to narrow my son to fit my vision of his disability, he still holds the wisdom and knowledge that he flies beyond my expectations. Only if I were able to convince him that he is limited would he then lose this ability to see the light flowing beyond him.

If I allow my son to grow within the miracle of his infinite future, he will never be defined by his disability; rather, he will never lose the magic within him even as he grows, and will carry it with him always. I am blessed to be a part of this child’s life. I really cannot complain. I am in awe of the responsibility I have toward him. His trust in me humbles me. And the magic within him renews me and allows me another chance to find within myself the magic I lost ages ago. Perhaps by letting go of the worry and hopelessness, I open the space in my soul for the magic to enter. It’s waiting just outside. I need only to give it room to enter and grow.