To the parent trapped in a horrible day

A pep talk.

I see you, my fellow caregiver. You’re trying and failing to hold it together because today is bad. Like really bad. Like so bad you don’t know how to get through the next 5 minutes, let alone the rest of your day. I see you because I am you and you are me. Does that comfort you? It comforts me. It means I’m not alone.

Your bad day may look different from my bad day, but I get it. Those days where hope and gratitude disappear. You think they’ll come back tomorrow, but right now you’re not entirely sure that’ll happen. Just fear and anger remains–fear because you don’t know how to handle this awful moment and anger because you even have to.

Some of my bad days involve Jack’s random medical crises and emergency room visits. Doctors scratch their heads and shrug. Huh, they say. They don’t know what caused the problem. I should let them know if it happens again. As if I know what I’m doing. Spoiler alert: I don’t. Those are my more dramatic bad days. Chances are, you’ve had those too. I just hope it’s not today.

But some days are bad for no interesting reason. They are boring and aggravating in their repetition, too mundane to even recount. And after 16 years of special needs parenting, they are my own personal version of Groundhog Day. And I am Bill Murray. Maybe you feel that way right now.

I remember being pregnant with Jack and saying I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s healthy. And by healthy I also meant “typical,” although I didn’t say that at the time. You and I know better now than I did back then, since we actually live our own “less typical” reality. That you can have a kid with all sorts of problems and that any scenario can become your normal. You adapt. What’s the alternative? We must sink or swim, my friend.

I call you my friend because we have a bond—we are part of a club we didn’t want to join. We inhabit the world of therapies and doctors and medicines that might help. We need, yet resent this land of special diets and special education and specialist appointments. The “Have you tried…” and the “God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle” encouragement from well-meaning friends and family. You’re living my life and I’m living yours. Maybe it doesn’t look identical, but it rhymes.

Why you? Why your child? These unhelpful thoughts taunt you as you struggle to hold on to the remaining shreds of your patience. I just want to tell you, my friend, whatever’s going on right now, you will get through it and it won’t feel so bad as it does this very second.

You know why? Because each bad day, even the ones that never seem to end…or the ones that seem to repeat themselves…all of these bad days may serve to bring you to the brink….but they don’t break you. Yeah right, you may think, for at this minute you’re barely holding on.

Don’t believe me? You are still here, still standing and still doing your best to take care of your child.

We are like those mighty trees that exist for hundreds of years. Those resilient trees are not the ones hidden from the wind. No, those trees break, should any gale force winds blow. Our trees have been buffeted by the winds over time, so we have developed a thicker root system, one that holds us up and keeps us strong.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Excerpt from “Good Timber” by Douglas Malloch

Trees can teach us a lot about resilience. And holding on when things look bad. When our children’s challenges blow up around us, we must bend or else we break. And so we do. That doesn’t mean those trees blown about by the winds aren’t impacted by their environment. Their histories are etched on each crooked imperfect branch. Just like us.

So the bad days can be an opportunity for growth if we allow them to be.

Jack’s disabilities have fundamentally changed who I am as a person. I look at life much differently than before, and on the whole, I think for the better. I have learned stuff about myself I would have never known had Jack developed in a typical way. Each rough day I survive makes me a bit stronger mentally. I do not notice it in the moment, but I do notice it over time.

And you will look back at this day, blurred over time with many similar days and you will be amazed at how far you’ve come. How strong you are and how deep your roots go in the soil. Just maybe not at this moment. But you will. Tomorrow or next week or next year or ten years from now you will. In the meantime, just keep swaying in the wind.

Good Timber
By Douglas Malloch
The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

Photo by simon Lewis on Unsplash