If you were to enter my mind and actually be able to read my thoughts, you'd run. Oh there would be nice thoughts, funny thoughts, sexy thoughts, and such, but there would also be a lot of darkness and sadness and reckless wondering, wandering through my brain.
Most mornings I take a back route to my office once I'm off the freeway. I almost always see a man sitting on a corner of the street in a power wheel chair seemingly watching the cars go past. He appears to have cerebral palsy, like Cole. It may be another diagnosis but the physical manifestations are the same. I see his twisted limbs and the slight hang of his head. Like my son. And depending on the day, and on the mood of the thoughts that race through my head, I cry, or I think he seems peaceful, content, to be sitting in the sunshine, part of the landscape. When I feel dark, I find myself delving into the unknown future of my son. It pains me to think that one day he would be this man, sitting watching the world go by. Not on my watch, I think.
My husband and I take great measures to make sure that Cole is very much a part of the world. That his life is full, his interests are pursued and his dreams made true. He may approach things in his own way, but damn it, if he wants to surf, he'll surf (thank you Jimmy Gamboa!). He is very much a part of our community, his community, and he lives a life most children would be happy to live. And I'm sure that the parents of this lone man I see did the same for him and I imagine wanted the same for him...and that's what throws me off. That's where I fall into the worse case thinking and I fear for Cole's future...It's a place I try to avoid, but sometimes the realities of what it can be stare me, smiling, in the face and I cry.
