It makes you or it breaks you

First, those of you who leave comments will notice a slight change. You can now leave a comment for an already existing comment, and they will “nest.” In other words, if you want to respond to a specific comment that has been left, you can! You will see a “reply” link associated with each comment. Of course, you can leave a comment to me, or a general one, as before.

And now to the point of the post …

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this whole having-a-disabled-kid-or-two thing. Gotta tell you, it sucks. Some of us got into this wonderful situation at the birth of our child (well, probably at conception, but I ain’t going there). Others of us were thrown into it as we watched our wonderful perfect child … change. I still don’t get how He can stroke out a beautiful young six year old girl (or two, and that’s just the one’s I know), but who am I to question? How a twelve year old young man can suffer seizures and seemingly have the mind of a six month old. Why those beautiful young ladies in southern California are not enjoying their childhood, but dealing with seizures, snot, and more. I don’t get it and it sucks.

And where does it leave us? Many of us have marriages in shambles, that is, if we still have marriages. There is a lot of resentment among spouses, for too many reasons to even start in this post (a subject I do want to write about). Many of us find solace in our blogs, or reading other’s blogs, learning, contributing, commiserating, or just saying “thank God that ain’t me.” We sometimes email each other and say “Hey, did you see that stupid post Single Dad just wrote” as a way of connecting.

I must say we do have a bond, somehow. Some of us have very different views on things, very. But yet, we are bonded in this low level of hell. Oops, I mean Holland.

But we continue, we go on. “What choice do we have?” You know by now my mother’s answer to that … “You can either do it right, or you can fuck it up.”

That goes for our own lives as well. We can rise to the occasion, or fall flat. We can curse God and wish we were dead, or we can do our best and curse God and wish we were dead. But that choice is ours. We can blame everyone else for all of our problems, we can blame all the problems on our kid, or the cause of the disability (if, in fact we know it) (and we rarely do), or we can go on and deal. Life is tough. Life with a severely disabled kid is tough. Is it tougher? Does it make us tougher?

We come into this situation from all different places. Some of us are fathers, some are mothers. Some of us are more educated than others, some are even better looking than I (or is it me?). Some of us are generally happy. Others are holding on tight and losing their grip. Some of us see the situation for what it is … and others think that we are mere projections in a dream world.

Scott recently left this comment (take a look if you have not seen it), he obviously has it tough. But so does everyone on my (way too short) blogroll on the right, so do I, so do you.

This is not where I was going with the post … but I’m posting it anyway. And I am stopping here. Go ahead, comment. I dare you.

“It makes you or it breaks you” sayeth the beautiful Aphrodite over her morning bacon and eggs …

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