A friend posted on Facebook the following quote:
“Don’t look back unless you are planning on going that way.”
This completely gels with my constant mantra of “Put one foot in front of the other.” It must have resonated with several other positive thinkers because the “Likes” and concurring comments racked up quickly.
Then, I realized, it was all wrong.
This is what Evan has taught me over the past few weeks.
Over the last month, Evan has been ornery – both at school and at home. His teachers reported that he was pushing at all the boundaries, testing all of the rules. He came home with a sad face on his behavior log for hitting another child. I asked him, “Why did you hit?” Evan looked at me, sad, and signed, “He had the guitar.” I asked, “Did you want the guitar?” Evan looked sad and just nodded. I signed that we would have to ask Santa for a guitar. This pleased Evan greatly and he smiled.
At home, I have seen behaviors resurface that I had not seen since the early weeks of China
Most children have difficulty expressing themselves. Even adults can’t always readily define what is bothering them. Evan’s lack of speech and hearing exponentially exacerbates this. Clearly, something has been bothering him. I would like to report that I was understanding and saintly-nurturing through this, but mostly I was disappointed and frustrated.
Evan wasn’t all that pleased with me, either. One evening, he sat at the dining room table and drew a grid to represent a calendar. There were numbers in every square. The icons for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were clear. In one square, Evan drew a jack-o-lantern. Several squares down the line was a turkey. Then, more numbers and a Christmas tree.
I thought instantly: calendar. It turns out this was my report card.
(This is where I must confess my failing. Halloween has never been a big deal for us. Ben doesn’t like costumes, so we have always passed on this. I bought Evan a costume so he could participate with his class. I also bought a big, beautiful pumpkin for the house. Unfortunately, I never got around to carving that pumpkin. After helping Ben through tons of homework nightly, making dinner, and taking care of a million other things, it never seemed convenient to get elbow deep in pumpkin guts. The pumpkin stood in the kitchen- refusing to rot- like a great orange albatross, a monument to my shortcomings as a mother and a human being. I couldn’t throw it away because I kept thinking, “I am going to make this right.” I never did. Evan would point at it a couple of times a week, make the sign for 'knife', and gesture at me with a look of absolute disgust.)
Now, Evan looked up from his calendar, pointed to the jack-o-lantern square, jabbed the air towards me, and pen-in-hand emphatically X’d out the square. Not just once, but over and over to underline his disappointment. I pointed to the turkey, hoping for leniency. I signed that I did cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. Evan glared at me, flipped the paper over, and drew a GIANT sad face, mimicking the daily report from his teacher. This was what I earned. Shame on me.
The pumpkin finally got put out as I prepared for our Christmas visit to my Mom’s. It was still firm and orange, mocking me, and I couldn’t bear to toss it in the trash. I quietly left it on my neighbor’s stairs as we loaded the car to go to the airport.
The trip to RI was mostly uneventful. But when we arrived, Evan’s behavior continued to be challenging. I do realize that the quality of children’s behavior has an inverse relationship with the proximity of Christmas, but this seemed to be more. Other mothers confided that this regression and re-testing is not abnormal. Kids sometimes need to push to make sure you are still there to push back. It just so happens that Evan’s “pushing” draws from a deeper, more difficult place.
Threats of landing on the naughty list did not work. The day before Christmas, in an attempt to help both Ben and Evan burn off some pre-Christmas energy, I took them both to the park near my mother’s house. On our walk back, up a steep hill, Evan ran ahead. Clearly, he thought he was winning some kind of race and looked backwards to taunt us. Ben and I continued to walk at a casual pace.
Three-quarters of the way up the hill, I took a step and felt a sickening, painful POP in the back of my calf. Something had snapped. I fell to the ground, one leg useless. Ben reached down, “Mommy, are you ok???” He asked with deep concern. As I explained that something was wrong with my leg, I looked up and saw Evan looking at us from half a block away. He pointed at us and laughed at me. The hare to my defeated tortoise. He ran on ahead to my mother’s house, ran inside, and stripped to his underwear - the victor.
Ben helped me hobble home, offering himself as a human crutch. I made a mental note to make sure to specify that this child will be the one to make decisions about my elder-care.
Evan ran back out into the yard to watch our arrival. As he danced in the December air in nothing but his Ninjago underwear, he was oblivious to the cold and my pain. I hobbled indoors and made arrangements for a ride to the ER. Ben hovered. Evan played in the living room. I told Evan I was going to the doctor. He waved his hands at me dismissively, “Go.”
When I returned, hours later, on crutches, Evan seemed unfazed. Ben asked if I was going to be ok. I reassured him that this was just a temporary condition and he seemed relieved. The day wound down and we went to bed in full anticipation of Santa’s arrival.
On Christmas morning, Ben woke first at 6 a.m. wanted to run down stairs. Evan was still sleeping. Remarkably, it took several minutes to wake him up. He is new to this whole Santa-concept, so I don’t know if he forgot – or if he just wasn’t sure how it all worked. The difficulty is that I had to get him to open his eyes so I could sign to him that Santa came and there were presents under the tree. Finally, after shaking him and practically lifting his eyelids myself, Evan looked at me. I told him “Santa came!” He got up – but not with the excitement you would imagine. I figured he would rev up once he saw the stacks of presents under the tree.
We all walked downstairs. Ben may have flown – I don’t think his feet touched the floor. I expected an explosion of excitement when Evan saw the tree. He approached with caution. Certainly not the unbridled child-reaction I expected. I showed Evan his name on the gifts. He looked at me and signed, “Guitar?” I told him to open the presents and see. The smaller gifts on top were met with lukewarm enthusiasm. Finally, he got to the bottom box, somewhat triangular in shape. Evan’s eyes lit up! He tore it open. Inside was a child-sized acoustic guitar painted blue with orange flames. He opened the box and took it out and kissed it. I got a “thumbs-up” with a big grin.
Evan danced around with that guitar demonstrating moves that he had clearly picked up from watching music videos somewhere. At one point, he hopped across the living room on one leg, strumming ala Chuck Berry. This was Evan’s Christmas dream, and I (Santa) had not messed it up. Evan will be the first deaf rock star, I have no doubt.
Since Christmas, Evan carries his guitar with him everywhere. He sleeps with it. He insisted on taking it to the Laundromat and grocery store because, he mimed to me, he will sing for people and wave at them. Evan is still Evan – occasionally he forgets it is a guitar and he holds it over his head like a weapon to whack someone with. I’ve had to take the guitar from him a couple of times. Evan always apologizes and promises to do better.
Overall, Evan’s behavior seems to be improving again. I’m sure the challenges will continue. As I review the past month, I wonder if Evan had to “return to China
Perhaps he will need to regress occasionally to confirm where he came from and feel in control of where he is going. Maybe we all do. The success of sites like Facebook is literally built on our desire to look back – to connect our past with our present, and link it to our future. Looking back helps us to be successful today and to make hopefully better decisions tomorrow.
When I tell people that Evan’s most prized Santa-gift was a guitar, it is met with bewilderment. It is, I’m told, the LAST thing they would think that a deaf child would want. I could have dismissed Evan’s request and deferred to my own beliefs about what he would enjoy more. But I remembered my own childhood and my mother telling me I could be anything I wanted. Despite being on the lower rungs economically, she encouraged all my dreams. When I wanted to go to a private high school, she told me I could go anywhere I wanted if I worked to pay for it. Because she believed in me, I now see all obstacles as things to be circumnavigated. There are no walls. Looking back, I can see the power that has given me in my life. This is the gift I want most to give my children year after year. This year, for Evan, it is painted blue and shaped like a guitar.
