An Irony Not Lost, With a Void

Many years ago, my mother was a special education teacher. And some of her “favorite” students? They had Down syndrome.

Over twenty years later, I still remember little David. He was tiny (well he was only four), with straight, warm chocolate colored brown hair, cut in a bowl shape (give him a break, it was the mid-eighties). You walked into the classroom and David threw his miniature arms around you. Inappropriate? Of course. Sweet and irresistible? That too.

A few times a year my mom would let me skip class and come to her school. I adored these sweet, affectionate little children (it was a “multiply disabled” preschool class, some had Down syndrome, some had other general developmental delays). They could also be scary. They had tantrums and outbursts. Sometimes it was hard to understand what they were saying, and that was the kids who talked at all.

But I knew the day I met him why David was my mom’s favorite. He was a charmer. He took you by the hand and led you to what he wanted to do, whether it was books or dress-up or wooden blocks. He was also sneaky. Sure David, you can have another cookie! Oh, whoops, they aren't supposed to have anymore cookies? David didn't speak much, but he never failed to get his point across. And that smile? Killer. Hmm...remind you of anyone?

Of course, the irony is not lost on me, how much my mother could have helped me with Leo, if she was still here, as a special education teacher, and of course as a mother and grandmother (my mother actually went on to teach "regular" elementary ed, but I'm sure she would have had plenty to add when Leo showed up).

Also, I can’t help thinking about my fourteen year old self, sitting in that huddle of preschoolers during story time. I had no idea what my future held, that my fortune held a child not so unlike one of them. Life is funny, isn’t it?

In those dark, early days after Leo’s birth, when I stared for hours at this little unexpected stranger with the extra chromosome, sleeping sweetly in the infant swing, I had countless one-sided conversations with my mother. Why did this happen? What do I do? What will he be like? What is he capable of? What should I expect?

And also? There was shame. Shame that I had not given her the “perfect” grandson.

Obviously I can only speculate as to what her reaction would have been. I think she would have grieved with me, but that wouldn't have lasted. In many ways, my mother was a very no-nonsense person. Not one to linger in tragedy (as I melodramatically viewed Down syndrome back then), her style was more to get up, brush yourself off and figure out What To Do Next. It’s no accident that one of the adages of hers that I repeat in times of trouble is “Every problem has a solution.” (Which is not to say that Leo is a problem, but when he was first born? Down syndrome was a big problem for me.)

Of course I know now that my apologies to her would have been more than unnecessary. There were so many years that she never thought she’d even have a grandchild, Leo was a gift, with or without Down syndrome.

At the worst, I think she would have worried. She would have worried for Leo’s health and worried about the added challenges that we would have with Leo (and that Leo would have). But if anyone were capable of loving a grandchild too much, it would have been my mother, who was unequivocally born to be a generous, doting grandmother.

I look at Leo today and I see the little David that Leo’s grandmother adored. And I also see glimmers of Leo’s grandmother, dancing around in his round little face, on his light brown hair, (grandma’s exact shade) and in his steely blue eyes and his cleft chin, the chin that is just like grandma’s.

She is never far from us, even though I know of course, that she is.