RAISING A HANDICAPPED CHILD

Or, Put Up Your Dukes!

Raising children is a tough business. You not only have to protect and teach them, you must feed and keep them clean and entertained. Raising a handicapped child is adding a whole set of problems.

My daughter Ellen is a fun kind of person! That in spite of her problems is who she is! She likes to be amused, entertained and God help you if you don’t!

Once before I renovated my present home, I had a Hallway, kitchen and dining room that all met at one point. You could literally run into the dining room that led to the kitchen that led to the hall that took you back to the dining room. It was the spot where Ellen and I played and had the most fun. She would chase me around the area, and as I got out of sight, I would be on her heels; she would see me and I would chase her. This would go on forever. Ellen would be laughing the whole time. I would be making exaggerated noises to her amusement. When I was on the precipice of a heart attack, I would let her catch me. Then she would push me to get going again.

Of course, it wasn’t always fun and games. Once we decided to take Ellen one Sunday afternoon to the library where they were having a musical show. Ellen loves music, and we thought this would entertain her. Ellen decided she didn’t like music anymore. In fact, she decided TLW (The Little Woman) and I didn’t either! This came as a shock to me. As we waited on line in the library theatre line, she decided to let strangers know what she thought of them. If someone came too close to her, she would smack him or her. We would apologize, and the victim would look at Ellen and understand. Ellen decided to take on the whole line, in fact, she was ready to wipe out the whole library! As we tried to coax her back to the car, she decided to pull a Mahatma Gandhi on us. She ‘peacefully’ sat down in the parking lot, refusing to get up. We tried everything we could, until some stranger came by and helped me lift her up and put her in the car! She was a teenager at that point.

Then there was a trip down to Virginia Beach one year. We decided to go to dinner, and went to this local seafood place. It was a large restaurant, and it was popular and packed. We went through the whole restaurant to this waiting area. Ellen decided her time was too valuable to wait, and besides she was hungry. She started to look menacingly at other people’s plates. That was our cue to move on out of there, ASAP! TLW grabbed her by the arm and started to rush her out, as I followed. As we passed one poor soul, who was minding his business while eating his dinner, Ellen reached out and smacked him in the back of the head as she passed the table. The poor bastard went face forward, almost into his plate! When he looked up, Ellen was long gone, and I thought I was heading for a fistfight! The poor man literally had no idea what hit him. I hope he blamed it on the hot sauce.

As aggressive as she was in strange situations, she was well loved in familiar surroundings. Once we took a ride out to Six Flags in New Jersey. It was a rainy damp morning, and the park was nearly empty. There were no waiting, so it was perfect. Suddenly, there was a yell: “Hi Ellen!” Standing across the lot at another ride was a gentleman who knew Ellen from her day program. Ellen gave this guy a big hug. It took a lot for us to get her to stop hugging people, strangers and all, the rest of the day!

When Ellen was a little baby, about 2 or 3 years of age, I would hold her in my arms as we went through a store. We decided to leave this big department store, with Ellen on my shoulder, facing behind me. When I got outside to the parking lot, Ellen was holding a doll, brand new, and off the shelf. NOT PAID FOR!

In the weeks to come, I hope to write about a lot of the things that have occurred to TLW and me, and the fact that life was not all bad with Ellen.


Please remember DD, and all that need our prayers