Susan Davis is the mother of a child with pediatric bipolar disorder. She wrote this piece, Motherhood: How it changes us, no matter our age, education, job, socioeconomics, or religion.
There's a greater message in here, not just for parents or about them - one I think everyone should hear.
She writes:
"How would I comfort another mother who is beginning to experience similar challenges? I would say to her what I actually say to comfort the people who spend their time with Milo, his teachers, his therapist.
I would say that when Milo, my son, is making other people’s lives hard, when he has left the campus of his school, run into the woods and climbed a tree so that they have to call the police and surround him, and get my husband or myself to come talk him down, when he has brought the action of the entire world to a screeching halt,
he is still the person in the most amount of pain."
If you are the parent of a child with special needs,
if you are a teacher who works with kids in special education or mainstream,
if you interact with people who are prone to unintentional behavior they wish they could change but cannot,
if you live in this society where we are called to love,
if you are a person,
hear those words from her heart.
No matter how much you are frustrated, puzzled, infuriated or inconvenienced, that person is in the most amount of pain.
Give the person grace. And give grace to that person's mother.
Succinctly and powerfully said. My child's Dx made life unbearable for those around him but it was always most unbearable for him. Press on.
What wonderful reminders! As a school bus driver I have children who have come from being on the special needs buses to regular buses and I always ask myself how I would feel if I climbed on the bus every day only to read in my bus driver's eyes that she was not happy to see me? I try to look for the good in all of my students so that when they climb off of my bus in the morning, they go to school with a positive feeling about themselves (and people think I'm *just* a bus driver!)
Thanks for sharing.
That is really great! Thanks for sharing.
Pain and confusion have "fingers" at times, that others cannot see......Good thoughts, Tricia.
Thank you. I am that mother as well. We more often receive judgement than grace.