Mothers Lie

By Lori Borgman

Expectant mothers waiting for a newborn's arrival say they don't care what sex the baby is. They just want to have ten fingers and ten toes.

Mothers lie.

Every mother wants so much more.
She wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin.
She wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

She wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule.

Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions.

She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class.

Call it greed if you want, but a mother wants what a mother wants.
Some mothers get babies with something more.

Maybe you're one who got a baby with a condition you couldn't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palate that didn't close.

The doctor's words took your breath away.
It was just like the time at recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming, and it knocked the wind right out of you.

Some of you left the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, took him in for a routine visit, or scheduled him for a checkup, and crashed head first into a brick wall as you bore the brunt of devastating news.

It didn't seem possible.
That didn't run in your family.

Could this really be happening in your lifetime?
There's no such thing as a perfect body.

Everybody will bear something at some time or another.
Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, therapy or surgery.

Mothers of children with disabilities live the limitations with them.

Frankly, I don't know how you do it.
Sometimes you mothers scare me.
How you lift that kid in and out of the wheelchair twenty times a day.

How you monitor tests, track medications, and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, the well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike.

I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy columns like this one-saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary.

You snap, you bark, you bite.
You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling,"Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes.

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack.

You've developed the strength of the draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil.

You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.
You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability.

You're a neighbor, a friend, a woman I pass at church and my sister-in-law.

You're a wonder.

This is something I ran across and just had to repost.  Sometimes you come across things that just beg to be shared.  This, to me, is one of those things.

Revisiting a Poem

Taylor @ 4 years old

I know just about everyone has read this at one time or another. I just felt the need to share it again.

Most women become mothers by accident, some by choice, a few by social pressures and a couple by habit. This year, nearly one hundred thousand women will become mothers of special needs children. Did you ever wonder how these mothers of special needs children are chosen?

Somehow visualize God hovering over Earth selecting his instruments for propagation with great care and deliberation. As he observes, he instructs his angels to make notes in a giant ledger.

"Armstrong, Beth: son, patron saint, Matthew. Forest, Marjorie: Daughter, patron saint, Cecilia. "Rutledge, Carrie: twins, patron saint.....give her Gerard. He's used to profanity."

Finally, he passes a name to an angel and smiles. "Give her a profoundly developmentally disabled child." The angel is curious. "Why this one, God? She's so happy."

"Exactly," says God. "Could I give a child with a disability to a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel."

"But has she patience?" asks the angel.

"I don't want her to have too much patience, or she will drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and resentment wears off, she'll handle it."

"But Lord, I don't think she even believes in you."

God smiles. "No matter. I can fix that. This one is perfect. She has just enough selfishness."

The angel gasps. "Selfishness? Is that a virtue?"

God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally, she'll never survive. Yes, here is a woman whom I will bless with a child less than perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is to be envied. She will never take for granted a spoken word. She will never consider a step ordinary. When her child says 'Mommy" for the first time, she will be present at a miracle and know it! When she describes a tree or a sunset to her blind child, she will see if as few people ever see my creations.

"I will permit her to see clearly the things I see - ignorance, cruelty, prejudice - and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of every day of her life, because she is doing my work as surely as she is here by my side."

And what about her patron saint?" asks the angel, pen poised in midair.

God smiles, "A mirror will suffice."

Perfection is in the Eyes of the Beholder

To say that I'm not religious would be an understatement. However, I do believe in God. When Taylor was born I was attending the church of her father (my ex-husband now) and it was a fundamentalist, Pentecostal church. While I was going through everything with Taylor, I had several members of the church tell me that I wasn't praying hard enough or didn't have enough faith and that was why Taylor wasn't "made whole & normal". Thankfully, the majority of the people were not like that, but those few are what started my questioning of the whole religious thing.

I came across this poem on someone's blog and saved it awhile ago. Today, I thought I would post it here because regardless of what you believe, I think it touches "something" inside. Yes, it made me cry but then anything like this usually does. Taylor is eternal innocence and I just wanted to share.

"As a small group of political and church leaders look on,

Jesus lifts a mentally handicapped child out of her chair kisses her and sits her on his knee. He dips a crust of bread in wine and feeds it to her, morsel by morsel.

As he does so, Jesus says:"I know what you are thinking. You need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new?

I could do it; but I will not.

I am the Lord and not a conjurer.

I gave this mite a gift I denied all of you -- eternal innocence.

To you she looks imperfect

But to me she is flawless,

Like the bud that dies unopened or the fledgling that falls from the nest to be devoured by ants. She will never offend me, as all of you have done.

She will never pervert or destroy the work of {my} hands.

She is necessary to you.

She will evoke the kindness that will keep you human.

Her infirmity will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune...More!

She will remind you that every day I am who I am, that my ways are not your ways and that the smallest dust mote whirled in the darkest space does not fall out of my hand...

I have chosen you.

You have not chosen me.

This little one is my sign to you.

Treasure her!"