Playground Conversation

If you follow me on Facebook, you know how excited I was to take our family tenting last week. Our family hasn't been in a tent since well before Moriah's birth. We've planned camping trips since she arrived, but every summer we have had to cancel the trips because Moriah has been too sick.

Last Thursday, we actually did make it camping to a nearby campground...and had to come home after 20 or so hours away. The heat wave was too much for Moriah, whose breathing overnight that first night was too labored for our comfort. Jason and I stood on the campground's playground in the early morning hours while Moriah climbed its play structure and made the decision to come home even though it meant undoing nearly a week's worth of work--those of you who tent know how much time it takes to re-check equipment, to plan campfire meals, and so on. I sent Jason back to the campsite to begin dismantling our tents and re-packing our van, and as he left, I had myself a really good, disappointed-again cry. And then, as sometimes happens in life, something really extraordinary happened IN (not because of, or in spite of--this truth has taken me a long time to grasp) my disappointment.

A little boy--let's call him Joey--came bounding into the playground. He wasn't wearing pants, just his bundies, which I thought was a little strange. But hey, pant-less or no, Moriah had someone with whom to play (there was another, older boy on the playground who hadn't been too friendly to her, so I was relieved to see another playmate come along). Joey found the other boy to be mean and too rough, and formed an alliance with Moriah. When the other boy tried to trap them in the underbelly of the play structure by barricading the door to the playhouse there, Joey led Moriah out the other way, underneath the slide, and into the open field. He held her hand. He chatted incessantly to her, and even when she didn't respond, he was completely unphased, and kept talking. Joey: Moriah, want to go to the top of the slide again? Moriah: Yeah. Slide. Joey: I love slides, don't you? At home I have a swingset with a slide in my yard. It's yellow. Do you have a slide? Moriah: C'mon! It warmed my heart to see the very tender, very kind way he befriended Moriah, and the way she walked with him and followed him from the play structure to the sandbox to the pretend car--around and around they ran, playing and talking for nearly an hour.

About 30 minutes into their friendship, and well after the other less-than-kind boy had left, Joey's grandparents came bounding into the field--apparently Joey had left the family tent without waking his sleeping family (which explains why he was pantless). I pointed Joey out to them, hidden underneath the play structure with Moriah again, and told them how well he had been playing with her. And then something extraordinary happened. The grandpa watched the two of them for a minute or so, and said to me: "I just love kids. I don't think Joey even sees her disability at all."

Here's why his comment was so amazing: very, very rarely does anyone, especially a stranger, talk about Moriah's disability outright, and with kindness and warmth. I bear my share of rude comments from ignorant folks (questions about whether I "knew" before she was born and if I had known, whether I would have "kept" her and that sort of thing), and I get a lot of sugar-y nice generalities (comments about how "beautiful" she is, as if beautiful is some sort of stand-in for "special" or the unspoken "Down syndrome"). Right away, I liked this grandpa. We struck up a conversation then that lasted a half hour--turns out Joey's grandpa considers it his "life's work," his "soul's work" to work in a home for adults with developmental disabilities. He's done it for decades, and still loves it, and laments only the twenty-somethings who work there as a way to "get" somewhere else, who miss the beauty of the people who live there. He told me about learning to understand the people at the home as people, not as disabled people. He told me about Joey and Joey's speech delay (which, in my estimation, had all but resolved given Joey's profuse talking). It was, for this mom disappointed again by the limitations of life-with-Down-syndrome, a refreshing exchange and absolutely timely.

I wanted to write about the experience here because I think it's important that you hear this from me: I would rather talk about Down syndrome than not talk about it. I'd rather you say the word "disability" outright. I already know that Moriah has Down syndrome, and talking about it makes it less difficult, not more so. We can no longer pretend to be the Joeys of the world--running around half-naked and blissfully unaware of the differences among us (and what we do or do not have). That was a beautiful, amazing stage, and one we cannot visit again. We are adults, and when we gather on the playgrounds of life to share our stories, we should do so with our eyes wide open and our hearts laid bare. When we do, we can lay claim again to this truth: Our lives are not so much about what happens (or doesn't) to us. They are about the growth of our souls within those goings-on.

Our lives are soul work. Joey's grandpa told me that.