“I would rather be dead than have to live with the pain and difficult stuff that some people with special needs have to go through.”
Elliot’s words after a long, difficult conversation about our evil world and the difficulties from it. His words somehow literally knocked the breath out of me. I had to grab hold of the wall so I wouldn’t fall into the floor. I immediately felt like a failure — I must not be doing a good job of disability awareness with him if he thinks he would rather be dead than to live with difficulties and hardships.
My children are very sheltered. They have never watched the news. They are unaware of much of the evil in our world. Paul and I have carefully shielded their little ears and eyes and minds from things over the years. We are very careful of movies they watch and books they read. Very carefully as the need arises they have been exposed to some truth of the yuckiness in our world. But only a little at a time.
We have a neighbor across the street. He is big and is in 8th grade. He has cerebral palsy. He walks but with a severe limp. He has use of one arm. Socially, he’s quite delayed. And he’s only recently been able to be outside and play with my boys. My boys, of course, are accustomed to playing with Chloe and other kids with disabilities so thankfully they are way more understanding and patient than the average 4th and 6th grade boy. I have been so proud of them for all the time they’ve spent sharing the basketball and the goal with our neighbor friend. I should mention that this neighbor friend can sink the basketball with that one “good” arm like crazy — you would be amazed to see it!
(But my boys are also learning that they have to set up boundaries with our neighbor friend. Most of their friends understand boundaries at least to a degree, but this particular neighbor friend doesn’t quite get the whole boundary / body language / personal respect thing.)
Well, yesterday while we were gone on our pancake feast, this neighbor friend helped himself into our house when he found the front door unlocked. All he did was grab the basketball from the entryway, close the door, and then go hang out in our driveway playing basketball. Yes, inappropriate for him to go into our house, but no harm done. I had a little talk with him about it (funny story that maybe I’ll share later), and assured my boys that I would do better at locking the front door from now on, and all is fine.
But my boys were quite bothered — Elliot was spooked, and Zippy was mad — by the fact that this friend had just helped himself to our house. I tried to explain that it would be just like Chloe walking to our neighbor’s house — she wouldn’t do it to be naughty or to do something bad, she would just do it because she was curious or because she knew that there was something inside that she really wanted to play with.
Anyway, the whole experience opened up lots of conversations about this particular neighbor friend. We talked about him, and I took the opportunity to brag on my boys and to thank them for being such good friends to him. I also acknowledged the frustrating parts of being his friend and the importance of our learning to set boundaries in a kind and compassionate way that will help teach this friend without hurting his feelings or confusing him. Some really good conversations.
We also laughed as we talked about some of his quirks and funny ways. He’s a great kid who has come a long way, and since we can so relate to having him around, it was fun to talk about him and some of the things he says and does. He has only recently begun calling Elliot by his real name (although since he can’t pronounce his Ls, he calls him “Air-iot” which makes us smile). Before that, he always called Elliot “Zoe!” He calls me Ma’am or Mrs. Ma’am. He asks me at least once a week if I’m Zippy’s mama. He sometimes hugs me when it’s time for him to leave — he’s nearly a foot taller than me! He changes his voice from his post-puberty deep voice to a very high-pitched squeaky voice and switches back and forth, back and forth. Etc.
But the other, heavier conversation we had for the first time was the fact that this neighbor friend wasn’t born with cerebral palsy. He didn’t receive the brain damage from lack of oxygen during birth . . . his cerebral palsy can’t be explained as an accident where something just went wrong. No, he has cerebral palsy because he was abused as a young child. Because of the harsh and cruel abuse from his father, this child and his family are now very much a part of the world of people living with disabilities. I had not shared this fact with my children because I wasn’t ready for them to know that part of the cruelness in our world.
But as sometimes happens, Elliot had heard from another neighbor the truth of this child’s story. Elliot didn’t believe it when he had heard it. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t find anything in his framework that would match a father and that level of cruelty. He needed to know if that story was really true. So with my precious and gentle 11 year old, I had to have a tough conversation acknowledging that there is that level of cruelty and sickness in our world.
He had lots of questions, and it was painful to watch his little mind and heart try to process that cruelty. He needed to know whether or not his friend knew the truth of why he is the way he is. He needed to know what happened to the boy’s father. He needed to know if the man was always that mean or was it just that one time that he was so mean. He needed to know if the badness and meanness in that man is as bad as it gets, or are there people who are even more bad and more cruel than he is.
And then he made the statement that knocked the breath out of me. “I would rather be dead than have to live with the pain and difficult stuff that some people with special needs have to go through.”
What an honest, thoughtful statement coming from a little boy who is so tender and wise. And since he is so okay with people with disabilities — after all it’s the only thing he’s ever known — I know it’s not the disability or the living with the disability that he was referring to. He knows he could live with a disability. What he can’t imagine living through is the cruelty and knowing that someone who was supposed to love and take care of him had hurt him so severely. THAT is the truth that he thinks he couldn’t live through.
It was a heavy conversation to have right at bedtime. I prayed that God would fill his heart and his mind with peace and comfort and understanding. I prayed that his dreams would be protected. And I thanked God that my children have no understanding and no framework for such cruelty. Thank you, God, for protecting my children. And thank you for the compassion that you have given them for other people.
And then I walked out into the dark hallway and cried, mourning over another piece of Elliot’s innocence that was erased tonight.
Ordinary Days 