shooting for what the post was meant to be

Okay so after my very truthful tirade about the word retard I've decided to give it a shot at the post I meant to post when I started out.... before I got angry all over again. No promises I won't get angry, and truthfully, very hurt again.

Boo has special needs. That's just a fact of life. The amazing part is that I don't really care... I mean not really. Of course I would make Boo's life easier if I could. I would take Boo's burdens on myself if it could make his load in life easier to carry. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to make Boo's life easier. I'm a Mami... that's my job, and more than just a job but my life's goal.

People use the word retard or tard, it's so common these days it's horrible. They use it and throw it around like it's nothing, like it means nothing, like nobody will be hurt by using it. They use it as if "retards" aren't deserving of respect or kindness or love.... they're somehow subdefective and unworthy of plain old human decency. That doesn't hurt Boo... yet... he doesn't know. It does hurt me though. I hurts so deeply and strikes at the core of my soul. It pushes all my "owie" places and brings the pain and guilt and anguish crashing down around me.... again. It's more painful than I am capable of explaining.

When Boo was born I hated myself. I mean REALLY REALLY loathed and despised myself. I felt that I SHOULD die. That I had no right to walk this earth. That my kids deserved better, that Ed deserved better, and by God that Boo deserved much better than me. I felt I had "burned down his house" and let this gentle loving innocent newborn in the wreckage of my mistake. I had done this to him. This was all MY fault. I had carried him and nurtured him inside my body and he was "broken" and it was all my fault... none of his but the repercussions of my mistake would weigh him down all his life and he would pay the cost. So to say that I hated myself is an enormous understatement... it's like saying that Hurricane Katrina was just a little rainstorm that went through New Orleans.

The Kitten came along and in her very special way that was in God's plan all along fixed that. She poured herself into all my empty spaces and cracks and fixed me. It wasn't her job. It's not why she was born. It's not why we had her, but it was a wonderful little "bonus feature." The self loathing and hatred just kind of went away. One day I thought about it and it was gone... well... it was hidden under a rock anyway. I felt GOOD again. I felt happy and whole and while my brain always told me it wasn't my fault my heart started to believe it too. I got to a wonderful place with Boo and it was so good to not feel the oppressiveness of what it is to truly hate yourself. I came to acceptance of Boo and of myself. Those old buttons and owie places were still there, and ready to be exposed, but they weren't all on the surface open and festering and bleeding anymore.... nope.... now someone had to pick at them to make them bleed again.

Then all of a sudden in the world around me I start hearing the word retard again and again and again and again. Everywhere I turn there it is... uneducated, uninformed, stupid people using that word... and every time I hear it it's like someone picking at those old scabs and making them bleed again. The other day I read that word, the third or fourth time in two days, and I blew up. I sobbed, I screamed, I ranted and raved and The Man stood and listened when I needed to scream it out and go nuts and held me close when I needed to cry and feel the pain and have that old "it's all my fault" come back at me. I thank God each and every day for that man.

People don't know the pain they cause in people like me when they callously and without thinking use those words. They have no idea how it feels to feel that your child is being viciously attacked... through no fault of their own, but through their mothers fault. They don't understand that making "retards" seemingly unworthy of love or respect is unimaginably painful.

Then the other thing, and I know this is long but live with it, is that I look at Boo... MY beautiful Boo and I see magic. Really. It sounds trite and ridiculous and used, but it's true. I look at Boo and he is beautiful. I mean really beautiful... physically beautiful to me. He's got this precious little round face with the most adorable round little cheeks, he's got these sweet little pink lips, he's got that little button nose of him and the most gorgeous luscious soul baring caramel brown eyes I have ever seen... really his eyes are just stunning to me. When I look at him I want to dive into those loving eyes because they take my breath away.... and when the light catches them I feel my heart jump into my throat. I made that absolutely beautiful boy. Me.... and he's perfect. He's also got a beautiful soul and heart. He loves completely and with wild abandon. He loves in a way so pure and innocent and trusting it's mind boggling. He trusts so easily and with such joy... he just KNOWS that we will always be there to watch out for him and protect him and he has no darkness in his heart to ever even conceive of questioning that. He doesn't manipulate or play people or do any of those typical cunning little 3 y/o boy things to get what he wants. He is the light. Again... trite... overused.... a little cornball... but it's true.

So when I take him out into the world and the first thing people see when they look at this little being of God is that he looks "different" and "not right" and they react the way people do it's like a jab to my heart and my soul. When I hear people talking about him as if we're deaf only a few feet away it rips my heart. When people say unkind and cruel things right in front of me or even to my face (and it's happened often) it cuts me deeply. I'll never forget my first experience with that.... Boo was only weeks old at the time. I had to go to Walmart to pick up a few things for the kids no biggy. I took Boo and all his machines and monitors and wires and big old "box" (his alarm system) and just went to Walmart to get a few things, being happy to be out with my son who was now HOME and not in the hospital. I went to the little young mans department to get a few things for G-man and then over to the little boys section to pick up a few things for Biggle. There I was met by a woman, younger then me but not young, she was there with a little blond girl that looked to be about 2 or so. I had stopped the carriage and was looking around when this woman looked at Boo and all his wires and machines and everything else and in the ugliest and most horrible tone I have ever said to me "Oh my God, what is WRONG with him?" I didn't know what to say. I couldn't move. I couldn't breath. I couldn't do anything, I was in shock. I just stood there dumbfounded for a minute and then burst into tears, grabbed Boo and all his stuff and RAN out of the store. I sat in the car and wept for a good 10 minutes before I could function again.

After that I learned how to handle things better, and I sadly and shamefully admit that I very rarely take Boo out. It's just easier to be at home. At home Boo is just Boo and we love him like he is. It's only when he leaves this house that he's not "normal" by the rest of the worlds standards. It's only when we go out that people look and point and whisper and are cruel. So we stay in the safety of our little cocoon as much as possible. Is that right? I don't really know but I suspect it's not really. I do it to protect the children from hearing ugly things. I do it to protect myself too. Maybe it's selfish. I guess I'll learn as I go.

The thing is, and trying to get back to my point as I'm so easily distracted lately, is that I don't see why other people don't see Boo. They don't see that he's beautiful and brilliant and wonderful and strong and amazing. They see the eye and the low tone and the leg braces and scars.... and are seemingly incapable of seeing beyond that. I look at him and it's like he gives of this radiant light... and it honestly puzzles me why others don't see that. He doesn't look like all the other kids. So? Look at how much more he has to offer the world? Look at the light in his eyes and the love in his heart and the kindness of his spirit and the magic in his soul. Why don't they see that? Why can't they see that?

I see it. I am so blessed.