Links may direct to affiliate sites. Purchases made through these links support our family’s work in spreading the Gospel to unreached areas.
Today, I am angry.
I don’t know why it hit today. For months (years?) we’ve been untangling the nuances of what at first appeared to be John Mark’s learning style. After a while, it became evident that it was not so much a learning style as a learning challenge. Then a learning struggle. And, yesterday, officially, learning disabilities— per the thick report detailing the results of the five tests that were administered last month.
The reports said pretty much exactly what we anticipated them saying, which was something of a comfort to me because no, I don’t have degrees in education or certifications in specific clinical training. But I do know my son, and I do sit beside him every day and watch him labor to make sense of math symbols and try, heroically, to take the word he just read so easily and transcribe it onto a piece of paper. I know the broad range of “normal,” and how it extends far past what passes for standard in institutional schools. But I also know when something has bled over into the atypical, and the tests confirmed that I was correct.
And just like that, dysgraphia and dyscalculia have made their formal entrance into our homeschool, though obviously they’ve been parties at the table since the first time that curly-headed, brown-eyed preschooler claimed his seat on the bench and proclaimed, “I’m doin’ school, too!” I knew even then, as he made me smile by being my first leftie, and absolutely rocked his way through the Bambino Luk tiles that his odds of having a learning disability were disproportionally higher due to the circumstances of his birth.
So why am I so angry? Why I am sitting here at the fruition of probability and wanting to kick someone?
Because I absolutely hate this for him.
I hate that, at 9, John Mark is in danger of figuring out that his 7 year-old sister is passing him by. I hate that he takes twenty minutes putting that beautiful thought in his journal, only to lift his pencil and see that what came out wasn’t what was in his head. I hate that he has to work ten times harder than most kids to keep his head above water, academically. I hate that the team of clinicians who worked with him told me, “John Mark was just such a pleasure. He just kept going. He had a great attitude about it, even when he knew he was unable to complete every task.”
I don’t want my kid to be the one who busts his hump just to break even. I want him to be the guy who is honest and hard working, but not the one who struggles and doubts and avoids bringing attention to himself because deep down, he worries that he just might look silly in front of folks.
If all this sounds ironic coming from the mother of a child who struggles mightily with severe cognitive deficiencies, know this: I thank God every day that Phineas is blissfully unaware that he is different from his siblings. I see it as a gift that he accepts who he is, and where he is in life with such grace and joy. John Mark? John Mark hasn’t been given that blessing. He looks around and tries to measure up. Right now, he’s still coming up even in his mind’s eye. I want it to stay that way.
So I’m mad. I’m not sure who I’m mad at, actually. Not God, because I firmly believe God is as grieved as I am. Not John Mark’s birthmother, because, right or wrong, I can’t go there. I guess I’m mad at the Fall… because that’s the only thing I can grab onto as I sit here pondering the why.
When I’m mad, I have to find something to do. I’m a take action girl at heart, and this one has me digging deep. I’m researching, planning, looking for tools. I’ve got a library holds list a mile long, and an Amazon cart full of Ronit Bird and manipulatives. My desktop has seven windows open, all to sites with names like “intensiveintervention.org” and “understood.org” I’m combing blogs, watching videos.
This is how I fight.
Tonight, this is how I’m fighting for my son.
John Mark has a climb ahead of him. God has written learning differences into his story. I don’t know why, but I do know that this is yet another opportunity for the verse we chose for him at his adoption to ring true:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. —Genesis 50:20
This kid—this one. He already has a testimony to God’s glory that I’ve seen reduce adults to tears. Another layer, another challenge? John Mark overcame more in the first seven weeks of his life than nearly anyone I know. Why am I sitting here angry, when he isn’t?
I’m going to keep doing, keep learning, keep praying. And together, John Mark and I are going to fight. I don’t expect it to be easy. I imagine that there will be days when we’ll both wish this was one battle for which we hadn’t been chosen. But here we are, in the center of God’s will. I guess that’s really nothing to be angry about after all.
Oh, Heather, parenting is so painful sometimes.