Saturday, February 18, 2012

Gold

“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” --Anonymous
I cried often when Cliff was a baby. I kept a stiff upper lip for my family, but in those moments when I sat alone in my apartment looking out a window or as I stood under the shower’s steady drumming, I cried because I felt sorry for myself. In the dark of the midnight hour, as I nursed him, I cried because I worried about how he would fare in this oftentimes cruel world. I cried because I felt more alone than I had ever felt, certain that I was the only mother of a baby with a diagnosis instead of just a baby.  
And then I met Leighann. We were both members of a support group that met once a week to talk about our babies, to just feel like normal parents. Leighann and I were total opposites—she outgoing and outspoken, and I, introverted and shy by comparison. The couples brought their babies, all of us gathering to admire each other’s children in the relative safety of a private meeting room at St. Agnes Hospital. Leighann and her husband began to socialize with us outside of the support group, and I always looked forward to our get-togethers because invariably Leighann would make me laugh like mad with her sometimes off-color comments and the way she artfully told a funny story. I could be with her without pretense.  I haven’t seen her for many years; I moved twice since then and we lost touch. When we found each other on Facebook, I couldn’t believe it. Now she makes me laugh without having to be in the same room.
Caroline writes to me once at year around the holidays.  Her Christmas card includes a letter with an entire year’s worth of stories about her family. I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years, but she writes as though we are the dearest of friends. I love how she ends her letters: “Fondly, Caroline”. In turn, I write to her in much the same way. The words she writes leave nothing out. The good, the bad and the ugly is all there, for there is no pretense between us either. I look forward to her letter, in fact, have come to depend on it, because there is a feeling of fellowship there; neither of us holds anything back. One of my favorite pictures in the world is the one of Cliff and her son Michael sitting on my ugly pink couch in my first apartment. A cone-shaped birthday hat sits on each brown-haired head. Neither one of them is exactly sitting up straight, owing to their low muscle tone, one effect of an extra copy of the number 21 chromosome. They wear matching one-year-old smiles and Caroline and I look so incredibly young, first-time parents who were related one to the other by happenstance.
When we moved from New York to Massachusetts fifteen years ago, my friend Diane and I did our best to keep in touch. We would take occasional trips to each other’s houses, but time and distance made it difficult to keep that up. I don’t know why we stopped calling each other. It’s terrible really, because Cliff and Diane’s daughter Jennifer were great friends. Conversations with her were always reminders that life is good and sometimes damn funny. Diane would eventually teach me so much about the ins and outs of dealing with school administrators who turned out to be giant assholes who probably shouldn’t have ever been put in charge of children, much less special needs children.  She would immerse herself in parents’rights and educational law, find the best people to assess Jennifer’s needs, and put it all together with her kick-ass personality! I credit her for helping to shape the parent I became and the advocate I continue to be for my son. Because of her friendship, I knew how to fight the constant fight for his rights. She informed my approach to life with Cliff: high expectations, no limitations.
How is it that I lost the treasured friendships of my 20’s and 30’s? How I wish I could turn back the clock, fix things. I miss them. After all this time, I have never quite formed the connections with other moms of children with DS that I had with them. I love the friends I have made here, and they are precious to me. But I believe there is a bond between and among those of us whose children are born with a challenge. I can pass a stranger on the street holding the hand of someone with DS and know her story. Our stories are the same. I know what it is like for them.
If there is a lesson to be learned from my experience, it is to give your friendships the attention they deserve. Even if it means a phone call while you’re doing a million other things. Even if it means getting in the car and driving three hours to where they live.
 If you take care of your friendships, you’ll always have someone to laugh with, a friend to listen to you cry, instead of sobbing in the lonely space of a shower stall.

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