In 1989 I stood by the kitchen window and watched Max
swatting a tetherball anchored off a limb of an oak tree. He was six years old. I was 39. Three years
earlier he nearly died from a prolonged seizure caused by viral
meningitis. Five days after coming out
of a drug-induced coma, we were facing a question-mark of a child. Only time
would tell, the doctors said. It took me years to accept that I had lost one
child, but gained another. After watching my son intently stroking that
tetherball in rhythmical loops, I sat down and wrote this poem:
In the shadows of the evening, I see
your little body swaying with the rhythm
of the tethered ball;
little hands gripping the plastic bat,
little eyes following the flight
of the orange ball:
a
sun on a string
orbiting
the oak tree
that
centers the moment.
Your lively eyes track the ball
and you smile because you have found
the rhythm and know you are in control.
I stand and watch through the kitchen window
and see me in you.
That is startling, because I have begun to live
with you as the disabled child
who never answers questions,
who never says hello or good-bye,
who only sings the little songs
that mark the simple routines of the day.
“This is the way we wash our hands,
wash our hands, wash our hands.”
I have taught myself that you are you:
unique,
imperfect,
weak,
and
not a part of me.
But, in the swing of your bat as it guides
the rhythm of the ball,
as the ball spins in circles around you
and you laugh and stroke it again,
sending it arching higher toward
the evening sun, for a moment,
once again, I see me in you.
As I read this almost 25 years later, I realize how
important that moment was for me. It
marked a shift in my journey through life with my son, a small step away from the
distance I had put between us, perhaps a distance born of fear of the unknown, and a movement toward his joy becoming a part of my joy. It was a moment of
my discovery that imperfection and weakness exist only in the eyes of the beholder.
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