She enters my house every other Sunday, gingerly stepping over the thresh hold of her past into a world she once knew. Looking for me she smiles and heads for her treat of potato chips and soda waiting for her on the kitchen counter.
She never speaks, not even to her parents, since the day she
was born. Never having the ability due to brain damage at birth, I am not
convinced what happened, but suspect; yet there is nothing I can do about it.
An enigma wrapped in a riddle that defies any code breaker from solving.
‘She' is my daughter Ellen, an icon for her parents that
weighs all our decisions we make. She has consumed my life and that of her
mother's. But she is something else, something =r someone so strong that she
can drive me to do all I can because she teaches me every day that I must work
for others, must devote my life to helping and reaching out, learning
compassion, understanding, and charity. ‘She' is my hero.
Today Ellen is 46, a middle-aged woman with no future other
than what I can help provide for her. We are anchored here in our locality
because we will never leave her, she is our daughter and we both love and fear
for her, we are parents of a child/adult of developmental disabilities and
intellectual non-development.
It is her birthday, and to her, it is just another day,
without concepts, without awareness, and without dreams. When she comes home,
and I see her as she walks over to her favorite spot on the couch, if imagine
her with a couple of kids, sometimes even with a husband, a little family
visiting grandma and grandpa. Instead, we have the eerie silence of Nature
saying nothing and offering even less.
Happy Birthday Ellen!
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