short-sighted.

so, following a discussion that we were having at mops today, i got to thinking about how i responded to a question. the question had something to do with why we, as humans, always ask "why me?" in certain situations, and why we tend to second-guess what God has in store for us. they asked if we ever ask ourselves that question, and when we do it. i replied immediately that as the mom of a special needs child, i tend to ask myself that question all the time. and maybe going along with the "why me?", i always seek the answer to the question "why her?"



it's interesting, but one of the people in my group replied that it's because i'm special. and i laughed. i tend to think that the people who are special always get rewarded... they have good things that happen to them... they tend to see the positive side of things, even when things aren't going that well. special people are just that... special.



but i contend that there is nothing particularly special about me. i had a dream at one time, and that was to have a couple of kids, build a happy home life for them, and live happily (but plainly) ever after. i was working on that dream when the unexpected happened.



we had had a little boy, who appeared normal in every way. and on his first birthday, we got the idea that it was time again to start trying for another baby. of course, since i had a boy, i wanted a girl the next time around. someone that was not only going to be a great playmate for our son, but a little girl who would love to play dress up and have tea parties and be a ballerina. it was my dream for my son to love and adore and be best friends with his sister. sure, i built a few fights into the dream, because really, what brother and sister pair doesn't fight? i'm realistic like that. but i never thought that i should be building into my dream special circumstances for a non-verbal little girl, who had trouble communicating and understanding.



there was a rain storm headed my way, and my dream would fall under the umbrella of special needs.



it occured to me the other day that we all have struggles. sometimes i thought that i would be able to put my finger on what my grand struggle would be. i thought way back in high school that i'd be the wife that would be unable to concieve, and i remember crying about it at the tender age of 17. i knew how badly i wanted kids, and thought for sure that God's really hilarious joke at my expense... my grand struggle... was going to be infertility. then as years went by, i found a husband, got a job, started really living life. and one day a pregnancy test stick declared that a baby was on the way. infertility wasn't going to be my struggle. we had a healthy baby boy. then we moved away, and right before we did so, we had an ultrasound that said that our second baby, my beloved girl, was going to be born with Down syndrome. now that was a struggle that i hadn't even thought of! "other" people have kids with special needs, certainly not plain jane old me.



little did i know it then, but that was going to be it. my....our... struggle. i can't say that i have exactly embraced it, but i do face it. i grieve about it, about the day to day, about what may or may not lay ahead in the future. sometimes i am happy that my daughter is the way she is... when i see other parents who are dealing with a much more severely special need. and sometimes i get angry that i've never heard my four year old tell me that she loves me, or that she'd prefer not to wear that ugly shirt i picked out. or that that pair of pink shoes always pinches her toe in the same place. or that her favorite thing in the whole wide world to eat is strawberry yogurt, and if she had her way, she'd eat it for every meal.



sure, it wasn't exactly my dream to have a differently-abled daughter. but i think that we rarely get to live our dreams exactly as they are. we all seem to tweak what we have been given, so that it becomes exactly what we wanted. and i think that you sell yourself short in this life if you don't. i've taken our struggle and have been using it as a learning experience. i've accompanied her to endless doctor's appointments, and sought out answers to questions i have. i've taken her to therapies and cheered her on. i've helped to start a support group of sorts for other parents of kids with special needs because i have had the intense need to connect with people who can relate to what i'm going through. these are all things that i never would have fathomed that i'd have to do when we were in that ultrasound room during her pregnancy. but i am glad to do them because she is my daughter and i can't imagine doing anything else. and it's not because i'm special in any way, shape or form. it's simply because i am her mom. her struggle is my struggle. and i know that you'd feel the same if she were your daughter.



i don't have all the earthly answers to "why me?" or "why us?" and i admit to being short sighted, simply because i can't know how God's intricate plan turns all this into something good. i mostly live day to day, trying to do the right things at the right times... and i somehow feel in my heart that it does all eventually work out for the good. we are all struggling... we all will struggle. and i guess, in a way, that makes us all special.