With the opening of the new movie “Tropic Thunder” I am reminded of my own journey with the word “retarded.” It was part of my vocabulary growing up, as in, “Oh, that was so retarded.” I didn’t think about what I was saying, or maybe I did and it just didn’t matter that much to me. Fast forward to
When we were about six months into the adventure of parenting a child with Down syndrome, I received and accepted an invitation to visit a weekly women’s group consisting of women from my church. I was deep in a time of learning more about becoming authentic, and learning much about being the parent of a special needs child, and dealing with pumping breast milk around the clock for my little son who couldn’t seem to latch on properly, so it was a very emotional time.
The women’s group was a pretty typical group of ladies who brought both pain and love with them to the meeting. Throughout the evening, I found myself feeling very defensive on behalf of one of the women because I felt like the other women were giving her the message, “Just change your mind and get over this stuff.” At some point, I decided to back off and was nursing some hurt feelings. One of the women I was least comfortable with happened to say the following: “I think dogs are like retarded kids. You can only teach them so much.” Since I was still adjusting to the idea of parenting a “retarded kid” I was aghast, stunned, and overcome with grief. Another woman held me as I cried and no one talked about what had happened. The woman who had made the comment did not know about Kepler. I left the group and never went back and never saw her again. Until . . .
Last week in J.C. Penney (two years after the original event), as I shopped, I caught the eye of a woman pushing a stroller and thought I recognized her. I glanced at her again and sure enough, it was the woman who had made the comment. What I was making up about it was that she recognized me but was ignoring me and I had to choose whether or not to acknowledge her. I knew that I wanted to make peace with this woman, so I asked her her name and reminded her of mine and how I knew her. I told her I was so sorry about what had happened that night and I told her about Kepler and how much of a blessing he is and how early it was in our life with him. She told me she knew she had said something wrong but had no idea what it was. I hugged her and again apologized and told her I was so glad I had run into her after all this time. I think it was the perfect time, actually, because I was definitely ready to stop judging her and mend the broken thing between us. She had tears in her eyes and so did I. I love when we get the opportunity to find healing.
1 comment:
What a great little boy you have!! I want to let you know about www.specialfriendsonline.com it is a new social networking website for people with learning disabilities their families, carers and volunteers. The site is a great way for parents to support each other,make friends, share inspirational stories and advice and never feel the same way you did when your son was born. It is also a great site for people with learning disabilities to make friends, play games and share inspirational stories . Please take a look at the site.
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