bogeyandruby

This past Saturday, I called my ex-husband to advise him about a birthday party our son was invited to because it is during his week-end on. The exchange was pleasant enough and as I said good-bye, I heard him start to say something, but it was too late, I had already hung up. A few seconds later he called back.

When I was asked to pray for someone dear to me a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that I have no God to pray to. That combination of no God coupled with too much medical knowledge makes me abandon hope and imagine the worst when faced with imminent loss. 

I did try to find God when I was much younger, visiting most of the Christian churches within walking distance of my parents’ house, but the experience was for the most part disappointing, and by its exclusiveness, painful. 

So call me a non-believer if you must, even though I believe in lots of the same things that organized religion supports, like the importance of community and altruism. I am also comforted by the rituals and use of scriptures to explain away the inexplicable, like how someone so young and worthy of life, could possibly have died. 

But the problem with borrowing religious doctrines, is that the relief is short-lived. And when the nagging doubts and questions stir once again, there is no white light and no hope, only blackness. So what does come after religion then? Are there alternatives? Aren’t we all seeking the same things via different paths? Alain de Bottom’s new book may have some answers. I am definitely putting it on my “to-read” list.

My son’s occupational therapist died last Thursday. His name was Jeff and he was only 23. Around the time he should have been at our house, as he had every week for the past two years, I sat my son down on the sofa and told him that his friend and mentor was gone. “Jeff died?”, he asked in disbelief. I nodded and watched his little face crumple in pain, then recover a second later as he sucked in the horror of it all and held his breath for what seemed like an eternity but was actually only five days.

“Au cours de ma grossesse, je m’attendais à un garçon aux yeux bleus, qui excellerait au hockey et qui apprendrait à jouer du violon salon la méthode Suzuki. Au lieu de cela, j’ai eu un garçon aux yeux bruns, qui tenait dans ses mains une feuille de paper avec Plan B écrit sur elle et rien d’autre. Le papier est toujour blanc et nous prenons la vie doucement, un défi á la fois.” 

The above paragraph is from a presentation I gave to first year occupational therapists at L’Université de Montréal this past year. I was reminded of it a couple of weeks ago when I received a modest but symbolic paycheck for my efforts and again this past week-end while celebrating my son’s eleventh birthday, revelling in what a kind and thoughtful young man he is becoming.

Like most parents with children who struggle for one reason or another (my son’s challenges are due to a diagnosis of DCD), I’ve run the gamut of emotions over years, asked all the hard questions and come to the same conclusion every time. There’s nothing to do but work on stuff so work on stuff we do, with a whole lot of help from our “village”.

There are plenty of times when my son laments over the difficulty of some task or expresses disappointment at not being able to perform a specific activity well, but I have never once heard him express envy or jealousy towards anyone who demonstrates a skill or talent he wishes he had. In fact, quite the opposite is true. He’s genuinely happy for them and shows it through unabashed admiration and praise. This character trait is quite remarkable under the circumstances as it would be so much easier to feel sorry for himself. It is also a strategic quality, not that he is being consciously guileful, quite the opposite is true, but the end result more often than not, is that his peers step away from their glory long enough to show a struggling boy how it’s done. And that, dear readers, is how you fill up a blank sheet of paper with moments of grace, when just yesterday the only thing written on it was “Plan B.”

Today, my thirty-eight year old stroke patient asked me when he would walk again. He asked me this after he’d walked a dozen feet using a hemi-walker, me holding onto the waist band of his sweat pants while his mother following closely behind with the wheelchair. “But you are walking.”, I said, even though I knew what he meant. “I promised my son I would walk again. He wants me to climb a tree with him. I promised.”

“Mummy, how come every girl I like is mean to me?”

“Did something happen today?”

“Well, this girl I like wanted a number bib. I couldn’t reach them in the cupboard so I stood on a cone and it got squished.”

“And?”

“She said, “Really, Sean?”, in a mean voice, with her arms crossed.”

“Did you get it for her anyway?”

Looking sheepish, “Yes.”.

“Good boy.”

What’s endearing about this is that the girl is a head taller than him. Personally, I might have told her she was being rude as I handed her the number bib but I’m not sure that would have made a difference.

How do we deal with mean girls (and boys for that matter)? I never really mastered the art back in the day. And even now, I’m more about modelling empathy than fighting back. In the meantime, I advised him to hang with the nice girls. Hopefully he’ll figure that one out before another cone gets crushed.