THE HANDICAPPED PARENTS

Most of our married life, my wife and I were known as handicapped parents. We are the parents of a handicapped child who lives and one who has died.  People must look at us as different and maybe even odd. Maybe we are, maybe we should consider ourselves that way, but somehow I don’t see that. I see us as average people that like everyone else try to make it a go in life.

Recently, my wife mentioned to me about this mother who wrote on Facebook, that she had a disabled child and felt she was ‘lucky’. I found this offensive because I feel she is looking for sympathy and has cheapened herself in the process. We love our child, we seek to protect her, we constantly advocate for her. We do these things because she is in need of our help. It is not about us as it is not about that mother’s child.

How do we feel lucky or blessed or whatever? Does this mother realize what hardship her child will encounter? Does she not know that her child will struggle with life, pin and frustration all the rest of her life? If you buy into the crap that God gives you only what you can handle, then many of you are weak, poorly composed. I find that ridicules. Who in Hell would want such pain?

That mother must now face the fact that her child will suffer pain from operations, pain from over medicated trials, frustration from being excluded, not wanted ion the norms of society, and the pain the child will instill in her heart as she sees her child suffer. She will need to fight for her child’s rights, battle the establishment that doesn’t care to fund the needs of these poor individuals?

There are no medals for parents of handicapped children, there are tears and sadness and emotional pain. When you hear someone say those things that that mother said, tell her to shut up and take care of her child, the world just doesn’t give a damn or care in the least bit. Having lived with this all my married life, my wife and I realize the reality of life, so lady get on board, save yourself.