I usually don't talk or write about my personal life. I tend to avoid revealing this side of my life because so much raw emotions live there. I'm not ashamed of my life or my family or my friends. In fact, my personal life is my greatest source of energy and love.
I don't talk often about my personal life because when I do, my emotions sometimes get the best of me and people can misread emotions to mean only weakness, sorrow, or pain.
I'm taking a leap of faith to talk about my personal life in a more public way because my older son, Kaleb, experienced an incident at school last week which caused me to reflect.
To understand this story you need to know a bit about one of the most precious gifts in my life, my youngest son Miles. Miles was born with Autism. At 11 years old, Miles is considered nonverbal and cognitively functions at about a kindergarten level. Miles understands more than he can say and can become very frustrated when we don't understand him. As a result, he has aggression issues which prevents our family for taking part in many basic life activities and social events: birthday parties, shopping at stores, going out to dinner at restaurants, having friends over. We engage in these activities and events, but rarely as a full family. While our adjusted lifestyle may seem completely foreign or unnerving to some, there are other things that we gain that are priceless. Miles teaches us everyday about courage, compassion, understanding, and the human capacity to love limitlessly.
Our oldest son Kaleb, at 15 years of age, is one of the most thoughtful and compassionate individuals you will ever know. He has and continues to hold his brother's well-being above his own.
Kaleb joined a website called ask.fm. At this website, people can ask you anonymous questions which you can respond to. Kaleb was asked some inappropriate questions which he choose to ignore until he was asked a question he could not ignore: "Why is your brother a retard." In anger, Kaleb threatened this individual's life. It was the first time (and hopefully the last) that I saw pure rage and anger in my son. My husband and I told Kaleb that he had every right to be mad, but he doesn't have the right to ever threaten anyone's life. We told him that he needed to explore other ways to deal with ignorance.
My reflection point: How do I show my son that there are other ways to deal with ignorance?
My humble request to the world: Individuals with disabilities have challenges before them far greater than those without disabilities can comprehend. To call someone an offensive word is self-serving. We are all human; what binds us is far strong that what divides us. We are all human. We can be a human family if we choose to.
