Article Published in Cerebral Palsy Magazine
Earlier this year I had the distinct honor of being selected 2009 East Cobber Father of the year. The East Cobber is a community magazine and while it’s not a big deal my daughters now consider me famous. Others have read the magazine and passed on word and somehow the publishers of CP magazine heard about it and asked me to write this article.
We discussed a few options possibly writing about inclusion or maybe some other topic specific to the community but after some time and thought I felt like I wanted to write an article on the blessing of being a special needs parent. “Blessing” I know, right!
It so happens that this issues of the magazine comes out around the holidays and its the time of year to be thankful so bare with me especially if your feeling overwhelmed and a little thankless right now. Maybe this article will be lucky enough to change your perspective.
My six year old has spastic diplegia. We started therapy with her when she was six months old and have been through ups and downs and I know how easy it is to get stuck in the down cycle. Right now we are planning a Rhizotomy for the summer of 2010. We have to figure out how to pay for the surgery, the therapy that will be required after and ensure that we will be able to commit ourselves to the time it will take. We are aware that her therapies will cut into other activities for both her and our other children. BUT that’s only one way to look at the surgery. The other is to see the benefits it will have removing much of the stiffness she now has, hopefully allowing her to move more freely and with less effort.
There are so many times we don’t see progress in the current and we get frustrated as parents, but that’s when its time to remember that we were selected because we are a special breed. As a parent of a child with a disability you have been given a gift. The gift of learning to love selflessly. All parents have a selfless love for their children but typical children become independent so quickly their parents hardly notice.
We are blessed because we experience that selfless love for a much longer time.
As a parent of a child with special needs we are pushed to and way past our limits. We decide to give everything we have to help our child be as successful as they possibly can be. Our quest brings us bigger challenges than we thought we could face, we do more and become better people. It’s amazing the that the challenge is what makes us better, but it does! So, we grow helping our children to become the best they can be.
I remember when the the therapist first told us: “Hey there is something wrong here. Your daughter should be turning over by now.” I remember when Haley was learning to sit up, to climb stairs. These were massive challenges on the same scale as climbing a mountain for a typical child. Not only did Haley eventually build these skills but she has become incredible at it. And now as a first grader after accomplishing so much she had to deal with someone calling her weird because she walks funny. So what do we do as parents? We help her write a book “I Am Not Weird!”
You see it’s the opportunities the challenges present that give us our greatest blessings. It’s learning how we can best overcome an obstacle be it physical, or emotional. It’s knowing and believing that our children are our greatest blessings that allow us to become blessings to our children and the world at large.
We are defined by the people we help our children to become.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments. And if your a dad reading this article please don’t leave the site without completeing The DADvocate Project Suvery. The Survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.
