The Shape of the Eye Part 2

After Kamdyn turned a year old, I went several months, where I felt like maybe I was "over it", Down syndrome, that is.  Maybe I was over all the worry, the thoughts of how people see her, comparing her.  I even judged a couple people during that time, wondering why they still struggled.  That judgement hit me all the harder, when I realized I wasn't "over it", but I was working through it.  I was growing and accepting, but I still have my own struggles.  I feared that people would judge me too.  Why shouldn't they?  I judged.  I certainly deserved it.  And while I know that to some, bearing it all, so to speak, is frowned upon, I still feel compelled to let it out.  It doesn't mean I love my child any less.  It doesn't mean that I don't hold the highest hope for her life.  I think these worries are present with any child:  What will they do?  Where will their life lead them?  Will they be successful?  Will they marry someone who will treasure them as I have?  Will they live a long, healthy life?  But when you have a child with special needs, these worries come more to the forefront.

When Kamdyn was first born, my feelings about Down syndrome were full of despair.   I felt exactly the way that George Estreich described when he wrote, "I knew nothing about Down syndrome except that is was bad, and that meant [she] was different from me."  She was different.  That's what I thought.  I read things like "More Alike Than Different", and I thought, What does that mean?  Is that some kind of consolation?   In the beginning, the differences seemed so loud, so blatant.  Those differences were in my face. 

the delayed development--- therapy
lack of speech---sign language
health issues--- cardiologist, ENT

Differences. 

But as time goes on, it's not that those differences disappear, but it's that they just don't matter as much.  Their scream became a conversation in a loud, overcrowded room where I was trying to yell over the clatter. Over time, however, it has become a casual conversation between friends, much more calm, more peaceful. 

Estreich describes it perfectly when he wrote, "what once felt like lightning on a hilltop is now more like static in a dry season, little sparks from a doorknob or the touch of a child's hand." 

I won't say I'm quite at "static in a dry season" yet, but I'm getting there. 

Nothing has changed about Kamdyn.  She is the same.  I have changed.  I have adjusted.  "Or love learned to alter itself, to accommodate the forms, She is no less my daughter, no less a person, for having an extra chromosome." Estreich writes. 

Love is a powerful thing, but I never realized how much so, until I saw firsthand how it alters and accommodates, how it becomes bigger than I knew possible.  It's made me a better person.  It's opened me to a place of mercy in myself that I always fought before. 

I have learned as Estreich wrote, "that it is not only the chromosome, but our response to it, that shapes the contours of a life." 

So it's not that "I'm a special person."  It's not I have this ability that other people lack.  I made a choice.  I make a choice every day.  I make a choice to rise above whatever may be stacked against us, and I choose to have a greater Hope.  A greater purpose.  I choose.