I’ll warn you that this blog is definitely some raw material...full of blood, sweat and tears. Not an easy
subject for me to discuss, but it is a reality not only for families with
chronically ill children, but for all families in search of that perfect
school. I think I have reached the point
that it is necessary for me to purge this subject and this memory, from my
system. I do this in the name of
forgiveness because this is who, what I need to forgive. I think we all know
that the road to any type of healing is a long road to forgiveness...it is often
a circular reference in my opinion.
When Ethan began Kindergarten, I recall having to leave the
hospital to attend his meet the teacher night. I also recall just feeling kind of whimpery
that night. Whimpery is not something I
would say I am very often, in fact I’m usually awkwardly hard-core, but honestly
the stress had just kind of gotten to me.
I was so sad because I just knew that my heart just wasn’t there with poor
little Ethan. I felt like a shell going through the motions because that it the
effect of an extended hospital stay when you finally get a moment out in the
real-world. I was only going to be in
town for another week or so then Emilia, Isaac and I were going to be off to
Cleveland, Ohio for a three month stay at the Cleveland Clinic. My mind was wrapped in the stress of that
fact, and of course, as I mentioned, we were in the midst of another week-long hospital stay
that could suck the life out of anyone.
Now I will be the first to admit that Ethan was by no means
over prepared for Kindergarten these days.
We had the most stressful last year of our lives and all of the
grandioso ideas I had for preparing a kid for school just kept getting pushed
to the side. Emilia’s health was all
over the place that year. We were in and out of
the hospital. I was trying to stop
working at a place I had been 10 years…which is a blog in and of itself. The kid had been read to every night of his
life, he had been adequately loved, and even attended an average pre-school..I
just hoped it would be enough to get him through those months I would be gone
and then we would work hard again. The
part that was difficult to reconcile was that Ethan really just is a sweet,
sensitive kid. I can only imagine
all of the terrible ideas going about in his creative head as the majority of
his family set off without him. He had
to have been so confused.
For the eight months preceding Ethan’s first Kindergarten
class, Emilia was throwing up at least 5 times per day…when I say at least this
means that there were many days that it was as many as ten times per day. Just catching it, cleaning up, washing the
clothes, the blankets, the carseat sometime daily was enough to make me crazy. We did have a system and the boys were
pretty well trained to listen for the sounds. They would run and retrieve
blankets for us to catch “it”…get us what we needed to clean it up…sometimes
they were just the alarm to let us know.
They were pretty amazing, but needless to say we were all in survival
mode. Once school started, he was doing
fine. He was very comfortably adjusted and
had tons of friends…he loved it. The
homework was intense and I know Dave struggled those first three months, both
of them adjusting to the new circumstances.
I think we both questioned whether the type of rigor was necessary for
our happy, high-energy 5-year old and did struggle a bit to take it
seriously. He was definitely initially
behind, but not by an insurmountable amount.
The last 3 months of that school year, his progress had been huge...the slope of his curve had started to skyrocket. As a side note, although I am no education
expert I will offer up a couple of observations. As a teacher, look at the individual slopes
of each of your kids. Perhaps graphing
kid’s progress is not something we do, however there is so much to be deduced
from seeing a slope as opposed to just a bunch of numbers…ps everyone in the
business world uses a graph to evaluate information. I know his slope from the last 3 months of
school had drastically shot up, which meant I felt pretty confident the
direction he was going. You can imagine
my shock when his teacher essentially recommended that he might benefit from
another year of kindergarten.
Really? He was reading? I thought he was doing awesome in math?? He wasn’t overwhelmed. He doesn’t have any social issues…what is the
deal??
I met with an administrator to discuss what our options
were. This administrator was armed with
every difficult task the 1st graders would be asked to do…I guess to
instill some fear in to me. As a
rookie, unaware of what 1st graders could really do or what a normal
school would ask, have to admit to being a little shocked and asked myself
could he really do that next year.
Ironically there is nothing that she threw at me that isn’t an
expectation of the boy’s current school’s first grade classroom. It is easy to create fear in the
inexperienced, luckily you are only inexperienced the first time around J. After the display of premier 1st
grade expectations I said, “You do realize that my other son, my daughter and I
were all gone across the country at a hospital while Ethan was here by himself
with his dad for the first 3 months of school?”
There was even a point that I just started to cry. This is hard for me to admit because it
really doesn’t happen that often, but my stress level had pretty much maxed out
and I wasn’t thinking all that clearly.
To their credit, after my blubbering she eventually said, "we’ll do
whatever you want us to do. If you think
he will be fine, we will trust you." Like
I said, I was obsessed with his slope of progress..that should have been enough
for me to be confident enough to say, he will be fine. But I let the bitterness fester in me for a
few days. I reanalyzed the way in which
I felt like she arrogantly displayed all the difficult work he was going to be expected
to do in 1st grade. I also
did some serious soul searching and a wise person said to me, “why do you think
you need a school to max your kid out?
You don’t need that. You can and
will encourage your child to grow in areas he is interested in…you can’t do
that when a school asks the max.”
Well, there it was. I
had to let my own failures go…not having him adequately prepared for what I
knew to be a rigorous kindergarten, the sadness I felt for having to leave him
for those months when he probably really needed the rest of us more at that
point than ever before. I recall
thinking to myself that a school that prides itself on instilling truth, beauty
and goodness can’t lack the awe and respect for children that endure some tough
circumstances. If we are honest with ourselves, I think we know that it
is these type of life experiences that foster those qualities..a school and
it’s rigor will only do so much. And the
kid (Ethan) does have heart, more heart and fire and passion than I ever had.
The irony is that years ago I set out to write a book on how
you instill truth, beauty and goodness into young girls these days. It was in writing this book that I actually
ran across this school. Ironically it is
my sons who will learn the lessons of truth, beauty and goodness through
Emilia’s life..it won’t be from a school, it won’t even be from me. What I mean to come to terms with through
this commentary is forgiveness. Thinking
of that year brings some serious strain to my heart, and it is time for me not
to care anymore and to just forgive all the people involved. After all, he is doing awesome. He is light years ahead in his school work now,
and he still has that fire and passion to boot.
I see these people enduring similar struggles as our family,
some far worse. I know they worry about
whether they can make adequate money to keep their families comfortable or just
provide. I know they worry about the
time they can spend with their children, their parents, friends, etc, whether
it is quality. I have to say that all you need to do is read
the majority of “success” stories across our history, the Bible, any
presidential biography or famous well-respected political figure…and they
endured like no other. In fact I hear
the statistic for how many US presidents lost a parent at a very young age is
incredibly high. Greatness often arises
out of the ashes. Let’s not let
ourselves feel guilty about teaching our children to endure and value suffering
for another’s sake and let’s not feel guilty about the trials we may have to
let them endure, whatever that thorn may be…it will be what inevitably makes
he/she great. After all, it has been
said that if St. Paul had not endured “the thorn in his flesh”, he may have
been too busy to sit down and write Romans….and what a loss that would have
been.
On a side-note, we started Emilia on her heart medications
today to help treat the pulmonary hypertension.
It is scarier than I thought. We
really don’t know what is going to happen…the side-effects could be painful
(headaches, nausea, vomiting, etc), but they also suspect that it could cause her to have
some other issues that would require another medication. Needless to say I am supposed to be
monitoring everything. I hardly let her
out of my sight today and so far so good. We could use your prayers as we
continue to increase the dosage over the next couple of weeks and monitor its
impacts. I probably won't write again until after Christmas. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas, great time with family and friends, lots of thankfulness and of course an abundance forgiveness. Thanks for reading and for all of your support!
