Friendship
by Carolyn Murray
Sometimes my comments catch people off guard, and probably leave them wondering if MY wiring is a little loose.
Recently I was talking with a friend of Daniel’s father. This friend often says things that show pity toward my son. I usually smile and emphasize that Daniel is a very happy boy, which is more than I can say for a lot of people.
This particular evening my ex-husband and his friend were sitting outside on the deck his boat when I came to pick up my children. I held Daniel in my arms and asked him if he was hungry. The friend wondered aloud how I know when Daniel needs to eat. I said that I don’t always, so I have to remember to offer him his meals at regular intervals. Then he looked at him with sad eyes and asked if it would always be this way.
I blurted out, “He’ll always need other people to help him, but he’ll have friends, too. I want him to go bar hopping with guys his age someday!”
He looked at me like I'd grown an extra eye in the center of my head or something. A moment later I explained where I was coming from.
I’d read a book by a woman in Canada who raised a profoundly disabled child. She made sure that when her daughter turned eighteen she had a home of her own to live in with caregivers who are her peers and who consider her a friend, not a patient.
One of my favorite stories shared by her in her book, Does She Know She’s There?, involves Catherine (her daughter) going out with friends to a nightclub. A man who didn’t realize she was disabled came over and asked her to dance. A moment of pure normalcy only made possible by the fact that her mother made sure that she was surrounded by her typical peers.
Catherine regularly goes camping, to restaurants, weddings…the same things we all do, and not just with her family. She has a life of her own. She’s an employer to those who live in her home with her. Her friends have discovered that being with Catherine gives them a peace and feeling of acceptance that they might not find anywhere else. Without saying a word, she has an effect on her world.
I don’t really fantasize about Daniel carousing with a bunch of drunk twenty one-year-olds, but I do want him to have friendship in his life. What is important to me is that he has relationships with people who love him, and who aren’t all either family or trained caregivers. His friends will have to help him, but hopefully they will love him as an equal. That’s my real dream.
