Waiting For the Bus

It was at a party for her daughter's eighth birthday, in the midst of a whole lot of hoopla, that we had this conversation, the other mommy and I. As parents tend to do when en masse, we talked about our children - their quirks, their cleverness, the lengths to which our love for them had driven us. We each had a boy and a girl, but in my case, the girl was older, and in her case, the boy was, by just a few years.

Image: Teece Aronin

Our daughters were classmates at school, and that was how the other mommy and I first met. She was flamboyant and loud, but in good ways - extroverted, I should have said. She was tall and sexy and could make smoking look almost as glamorous as people thought it was back in the fifties. She could also drink like a fish but didn't seem to lose control from it. I could never imagine her sick on booze, cooling her face on the bathroom tiles like a lot of people do when they've drunk too much. She seemed to take everything in stride, made everything she did look easy. And she was a loving mother, a hands-on mother, the kind of mother who makes mud pies with her kids.

Since children's parties and parent-teacher conferences were our usual conversation venues, we didn't talk often, but I enjoyed her when we did. One time she listed for me all the reasons she'd preferred to work outside the home even when her kids were babies. She said the same thing as a lot of women who work, when financially they can afford to stay home; that the adult interaction made her a better parent. Then she jokingly confessed the "real reason" and laid it smack on her daughter's playhouse doorstep: "That kid always talked way - too - damned - much."

But that was a different time and not the conversation I'd started to tell you about. This other conversation, as I said, took place on the occasion of her daughter's eighth birthday. But we weren't talking about her daughter; we were talking about her son. We were at her home, a comfortable townhouse she shared with her family. Being at her place always cheered me up because it was cluttered and chaotic even when she entertained, and she made no apologies for it. It cheered me up because when I entertained, I either compulsively bulldozed the clutter out or compulsively apologized for it to my guests. How could I get as comfortable in my skin as she was in hers, I wondered.

Anyway, there we were, the other mommy and I, grazing from the veggie plate, when she told me that when she was a girl, she used to make fun of the "short bus," the smaller buses used to transport kids with special needs to and from school.

So this is how the kids who teased, the kids who bullied might turn out, I mused. I had never met an adult with the guts to admit to that kind of behavior, but this one had, and she'd grown up to be . . . well . . . good, in a lot of ways. I don't know if she made fun of the kids themselves, the kids with special needs, I mean, or if she just joked about the bus itself, telling her friends they belonged on one and that kind of thing. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

For the life of me, I can't remember how we got onto the topic of her son's first day of kindergarten or what possessed her to tell me something so personal, but she did. She said that she stood at the curb with him, waiting for the bus, and the picture of them was so clear in my head, her standing there with him, her son, born with Down syndrome.

And she said that what looped through her mind over and over were the words: "Please God, don't let it be a short bus. Please God, don't let it be a short bus. Please God, don't let it be a short bus."

I don't remember if it turned out to be a short bus or not, but maybe that doesn't matter now either.

A Perfectly Beautiful Son

Mother's Day will be here soon, so I thought I'd reach way down deep in the memory drawer and pull something out that I wrote years ago and haven't looked at in a while.

A picture of me with my own son

A woman once told me about the day when her son, born with cerebral palsy, came into the house upset because some neighborhood kids had been bullying him. She stood with him in front of the full-length mirror she kept in her bedroom and said, "Look at yourself. That's your body and it's beautiful." 

After she told me that story, I wrote this poem for her. I'm sharing it here for all the mothers of children with disabilities. Your children are amazing, and they have made you more amazing too and probably stronger than you ever thought you could be. Happy Almost Mother's Day to all of you.

A Perfectly Beautiful Son

"I'm crippled and useless; the kids say I am."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son."

"Mommy, how can you say that when you know how I look?"

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. You look like your father. You're lucky, my pet. He's handsome and strong. Can't you see? You belong. Be proud, my beautiful son."

"My feet drag on the ground; I fall down all the time."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. And when you fall down, you get right back up. You've never stayed down and I know you won't now. Get up, my beautiful son."

"My hands always shake; I spill everything."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. And when your hands shake, I will hold them in mine. It will steady us both; not just you but me, too. Hold tight, my beautiful son."

"My speech comes out funny; people can't understand."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. And when I hear you speak, I hear magical sounds. The words are so clear and their meanings so dear. Speak out, my beautiful son."

"People think that I'm weak, just because I'm so small."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. And your heart's grown so strong, how could you be weak? To me you're so mighty, sometimes I can't speak. Stand tall, my beautiful son."

"The kids have been saying I'll wind up alone."

"You're my perfectly beautiful son. You have so much to give and a great life to live. And when the day comes that a girl sees this too, I'll love her so much - but not like I love you. But I'll love her to pieces, and I'll shout to the world, 'My son's found his true love! What a perfectly beautiful girl!"

Angel in a Helmet

One morning, I lost my Mother of the Year Award twice in 15 minutes.  

I was attempting to get my seven-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter off to school. My daughter was on a course of oral steroids for treatment of a run-in with poison oak. I, in my finite wisdom, defied the clock and decided she should take the pills right then before we left even though we were extremely tight on time. She sat at the kitchen table, her face swollen and blotchy, crying because she didn't want to go to school looking like she'd just gone nine rounds with a boxing kangaroo. 

               
She put one of the pills into her mouth, but because of the sobbing, was unable to get it down. Cleverly, I used child psychology to help her swallow the pill: "Swallow - the - pill - now - please." 

We Mother of the Year Award winners always say please to reinforce good manners in our kids. What a surprise when she cried harder. By the time we left, water and pills had dribbled down her front, into her lap, and onto the carpet, upsetting us both even more. 

               
After we got in the car, my son told me his lunch money was in the house, even though I had expressly instructed him to put it in his backpack. "Oh, this is just great!" I said, stomping up the walk to unlock the front door for him. 

               
A few minutes later, both kids had been safely deposited at school, and as I decompressed, I began a post-mortem of what went wrong. I decided that even though I was clearly wrong, I wasn’t going to be too hard on myself since 99.9% of the time I am patient with my kids. I was also under a lot of stress that day. 

I decided that the first thing I was going to do when I picked the kids up later would be to apologize for acting like a “big, dumb jerk,” which is how I usually refer to myself at times like that. Then, I remembered a child to whom I had apologized many years before.

                
During high school, I volunteered every afternoon at a learning center for people with disabilities. There was one little boy, Vincent, who lit up every time I walked into his classroom and would rush to me for a hug. 

I wish you could picture him as clearly as I can: four years-old, Black, slight build, and an ever-present helmet to protect his head during seizures. He had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen - huge, round eyes with long, curling eyelashes, and he was completely nonverbal. I was crazy about this child, and if he thought I was the highlight of his day, I knew he was the highlight of mine.

               
One winter day, it was time to go home, so I started helping Vincent with his coat. Gently, I placed his little fist against the opening at the top of the sleeve and guided it in. About halfway through the sleeve, his fist stopped. I assumed he'd purposely grabbed onto the lining.

               
“Vincent, you have to put your coat on; this isn’t time to play,” I said. I pushed down on the little fist again, but it went nowhere.

“Vincent, this is not funny,” I said peering straight into the bon-bon eyes. Those eyes would have no effect on me, no sir. He looked back at me with a placid little smile that I mistook for defiance. “You have to put your coat on now, or you’ll miss the bus. Now, please stop fighting me.”

               
When I failed for the umpteenth time to push his hand through the sleeve, I reached up through the cuff to grasp his hand and pull it through. What I pulled through were his hat and mittens. He had been unable to push his fist through the sleeve and unable to tell me so.

               
Shamefully, my eyes darted toward a teacher who was calmly and successfully helping another child into his coat. I was glad she didn’t seem to have noticed. Then she smiled and said, “Don’t you just hate it when you do something stupid like that?”

              
I admitted that yes, I did hate it when I did something stupid like that. Then I looked at Vincent who was still gazing at me. His expression was the same as before, but this time I saw it for what it really was: patience - patience for the “big, dumb jerk” determined to shove his fist through his hat. I knelt in front of him, put my hand over my heart, and peered into his face.

               
“Vincent, I am sorry. What I did was wrong. I apologize.”

               
Staring into those eyes, I wondered if he understood. Then he grinned, spread his arms like the wings of an angel, and executed a graceful freefall into my hands. What resulted was one of the best hugs I have ever gotten or ever given, and it taught me this lesson: Never hesitate to apologize to a child when you are in the wrong. When I picked up my kids that afternoon, I told them how sorry I was for the way I'd behaved, and they graciously accepted my apology. 

              
I have thought of Vincent many times since those long-ago days at the school. And no doubt, I will think of him many more. When I apologized to him, he assured me without a word that finally, what I was doing was right. And no doubt, if he’s even still alive, he suspects nothing of what he did for me that day.