That’s what’s been on my mind these past couple of days.
This weekend, my husband and I went to a ceremony honoring teen volunteers for a Sunday morning program Max attends. It’s for kids with special needs, and it’s really amazing—Dave drops Max off at 9:30, and picks him up at 12. They sing, make art projects, play basketball and even cook or bake something.
Anyway, at the start of the ceremony they had a slideshow of the kids in the program. As I watched kids with various disabilities flash onto the big screen, Max included, I suddenly thought:
I wish I weren’t here.
It’s what often happens when I’m around a bunch of kids with special needs. At home, Max is just Max. But when I see him in a community of kids with disabilities, like that night or when I take off work and go to Max’s school, it gets to me. I have a hard time accepting that he really is part of that community. It’s when it hits me, hard, that I have a kid with special needs.
I don’t know when I will fully accept it. On some level, I have—literally from the time Max was a month old, he has gotten some form of therapy. We do everything we can to enable him, encourage him and just make him a happy, content kid. That is a part of our life, something we do without a second thought. But clearly, on an emotional level, I am still in some sort of denial.
This kind of stuff never gets to my husband. He wasn’t sitting there getting all emotional and wrought that night. Just me.
Does this happen to you?