A Normal Life

It's one thing to promise yourself that your child with a disability will lead a normal life--that you won't treat him or her any differently than you would without the disability.

It's another to send that child off to wilderness camp for six days.

Will his glasses break, or get lost?  What if he forgets to take his medicine, or, worse, loses it?  What if something happens to him that, if it happened to a child without the disability, would be bad enough--but, if it happened to him, would be chilling?

You try very hard not to think of him lost, or facing a bear, or kidnapped, without being able to even see.

Maybe, with him, the risks are just too great, you think.

And then you remember your promise, back when he was two weeks old and you could control everything.

What, exactly, did you mean?

Did you mean just that you would let him go to school, but not camp?  That he would walk, but not swim or hike?

Of course you didn't mean those things.  So, you weigh the risks of bringing it up with him.  On the one hand, without his disability, you wouldn't bring it up.  On the other, you know that a good parent coaches children on how to avoid calamity, what to do in an emergency, and how to prevent problems.

So, you hesitatingly ask, what's your plan, son, for keeping your glasses safe when you're in the lake?  Because his glasses aren't just glasses, you see.  They are the only lenses his eyes have.  They are actually, in his case, a prosthetic device.  Other kids don't worry about losing the natural lenses inside their eyeballs in the lake.  Or someone stepping on them when they are left on the sand on a towel.

Like the responsible kid he is, he has a plan already.  And he tells it to you.  It's a good one.  So, you nod and smile.  You want to hug him, and then never let go.  But you find yourself treating him like the adult he is becoming.  Because he just earned it.

And you let him go camping.

And you pray.

And hug him when he gets back.  With his glasses.  Just like you knew he would.