Now that Schuyler is up to her eyeballs in high school life, marching band has become something of a sink-or-swim experience for her. This has resulted in a few stumbles, such as when she took the field at last week's football game with big floppy shoes that were not just untied but actually unlaced because she couldn't do it and, for whatever reason, she couldn't find anyone to help her while the band was getting into their uniforms. The new independent model of Schuyler 2.0 has some bugs to work out of the system, but she's getting there.
Today, I have a brief message specifically for the parents of kids with special needs. It's a message that parents of typical kids probably need to hear, too, but I kind of feel like they've got supports in place, strong ones with foundations rooted deep within our social structure. Of late, I've been watching as one special needs parent after another falters, and I've seen how tenuous their supports really can be. Their supports; OUR supports. I suppose my message to them is a message to myself as well.
Schuyler's voice is no longer a thing to squeak out of her iPad in close proximity. It's a thing that can travel beyond her immediate space. In some ways, Schuyler has found a way, though the simple act of handing a speaker over to a listener or placing outside of her own immediate personal space, to improve upon the natural human voice that she has been denied. And in handing that voice over to another, she creates a strange kind of intimacy, better than a shout. In a loud room, Schuyler can put her voice in your ear. I can't do that, and I find myself ever so slightly envious.
Typical parents fear The Sex Talk. (To be fair, so do we.) Many special needs parents have The Other Talk, too. We don't discuss the topic with others very much, but be assured that we think about it. When we approach the topic with our kids, we do so gently, because in even the most tragic circumstances, Death shouldn't eclipse Life, and the days we get with our kids shouldn't be entirely stained by our anxiety for the days we lose.
I'm not usually one for writing contrived holiday-themed posts here ("It's Arbor Day, folks, and special needs families just love trees!"), but I think I'm going to make an exception for Labor Day. There are a lot of hard working people in this country, but those of us in the world of disability parenting find ourselves surrounded by the hardest working humans on the planet. For our kids, finding success in school and in the world is a lot like being an astronaut. We understand that the person standing on the moon is an extraordinary individual, and we celebrate that person's achievement. We do so, however, with the knowledge that it took a team to support those efforts and help that astronaut arrive.
