Nobody ever says, " I wanna be a special needs mom."

Nobody ever says, " I wanna be a special needs mom."
Except me.
I remember when it happened.
I was in the grocery store and a little developmentally disabled boy came walking in with his mommy.
He was smiling so big, swinging his held hand as he walked,
And he looked like he didn't have a worry in the world.
I remember looking at my husband and telling him that if G-d chose to bless us with a special needs child I would happily be their mother.
And then my son was born and I forget all about that.
I remember how stiff he was when we brought him home and how I knew from the first night that there was something "wrong."
I remember laying awake all night wondering what was going to happen to him,
Would he ever be "normal?"
Would he walk? Would he talk?
I made his story my victimhood.
I wished he was normal.
I wept for the loss of the babyhood of my last child.
I grieved the hard life he would inevitably have.
And then one day something changed.
One day I remembered that moment in the grocery store with that smiling boy, and I realized.
THIS IS MY SON.
He is a child with special needs and he was always going to be that.
That is who HE is and who he came here to be.
My son doesn't have special needs,
A special needs child is MY SON.
And it was at that moment that everything changed.
Instead of looking at him (and me) as a victim I started looking at us as a team.
A couple of souls solving a puzzle.
A puzzle of how to live a fulfilled life.
I started to celebrate his inchstones instead of mourning milestones.
I started to be grateful for the skills he gained and not the ones he was still struggling with.
CAN I JUST TELL YOU WHAT A DIFFERENCE THAT MADE?
What a shift I had simply loving who he was without trying to make him into something I wished he was?
Something I felt reflected poorly on me?
I wish I could tell you I no longer struggle with his struggle, but it wouldn't be true.
I still catch myself wondering what it would be like if he sat up or if he could talk.
I still slip into worry about what will happen to him when we are gone...
But those times are now fewer and far between,
As we settle into this greatest adventure of our lives.
and it isn't parenting a special needs child.
It's loving what is...
and being grateful for the gift of the journey
and of this precious magical little man who "calls" me mom.

-AmyLee