Profoundity

The agency I work for had a thank you party for our donors and volunteers. I had to speak, which isn't unusual for me. This was a group of folks whom I know, most of them anyway, and I've asked many of them to speak for us from time to time, so it was a friendly crowd.

The trouble is, particularly when I'm with a group I respect, I feel like I have to be the one who says the profound thing. The thing that haunts people, that they talk about on the way home. And I just don't have that in me.

I guess that's not entirely true. I don't have it in me to be profound about every single subject. I'm kind of a straightforward gal, not sentimental or romantic. Really a boring broad if you want to know, but if I had to say something to folks to pull at their heart, this is what I'd say:

I'm the mother of a twelve year old boy who loves to talk about, well, poo. His favorite joke is anything that involves passing gas, he believes having to attend school is a human rights violation, and would endure any three painful alternative activities rather than voluntarily read a book.

But everytime he embarrasses me in front of my colleagues with scatalogical humor, everytime we fight about the math homework, everytime beseiges me with requests for expensive video games, I want to shout to heaven how happy and grateful I am. He is alive!

It seems to me like that is the only truly profound truth left in the world: life is good. Being alive is the greatest gift, and we really do not get that.

Having the awareness that I have is also a gift. To konw you are blessed is a separate blessing.

That's what I'd say, and then I'd leave the podium and go find my kid and let him rag at me for leaving him with the babysitter while I went to "AH-nutherrrr meeting!" Truly, it's like music.

Introduction

My son was bereft when summer ended and he had to go back to school. At the end of his first day of middle school, I picked him up and, as usual, he asked me "what's for dinner?" Before waiting for me to answer he added:

"Let me guess, tears, bacon and a side of hope."

Who knows where that kind of thing comes from. EJ doesn't. EJ is twelve and just started 6th grade. He's wickedly smart, but he's also disabled. At two years of age EJ came down with a bad case of cancer. As a result, he lost some of his vision, some of his ability to walk, some of his IQ, some of his hearing, but not an iota of the essential EJ.

I'm a single mother and I live with EJ, our dog Pearl, our cat Billie and numerous dust bunnies in our home in Seattle.

I decided to start writing this blog to talk about parenting a disabled kid, living in the Northwest, loving Jesus and generally facing life in the 21st century.

Hope you enjoy!