Overload.
Sometimes there is emotional overload.
For months, I had been trying to get an appointment with a specialist for a new issue with my disabled child-the specifics are not important and I try to protect his privacy.
After months of phone calls and some e-mails and some faxes I finally got the appointment and I was told to prepare for long waits in this particular clinic. I was prepared and had no problem with that, as I wanted to get some information, a plan, etc.
The big appointment finally came and I had already mentally prepared myself for the worst. For the worst possible prognosis, the worst possible treatment options for this particular issue.
The waiting room was sort of like the third world in the middle of a first world city. A little run down, a few too many bookings, at least a half a dozen languages being spoken and a few dozen shades of worried parents.
And then, I spotted a little boy, he couldn't have been more than about three or four, having a little nap on his Mom. His motorized wheelchair with head support was just to their side. She was holding him without a single indication that she might be at all uncomfortable on the bench like chair. And her mother was beside her, alternating between light conversation and trying to keep her daughter comfortable.
Eventually the little guy woke up, and the grandmother took him from the mother, and put him on her lap, and supported his body to look up at her because he had low tone. And she was smiling, and making peek a boo faces, and surprise faces at that little guy.
And I wish I could have gone up to them to tell them how much love I felt radiating from them. I wish I had gone up to them and said what a gift they had, to have each other, and how a grandparent's love for a grandchild and the worry also about their own child caring for a disabled child was so palpable, it was like a thick cloud of love in the room, kind of shutting out the hum of conversation and the florescent hospital lighting.
But I had my own son to to watch over, and nobody to keep an eye on him in order to make my way across the crowded waiting room. But I glanced a few more times.
And then, my mother called me-she was at the big shopping mall near the hospital. Was I finished? Did I want some company, even just to get a bathroom break, or a coffee?
So I said sure, the more the merrier. And she walked over, and kept me company. And there we were-the three generations just like I was watching from across the room.
And as it turned out-thank G-d, my worst worries were unfounded and although the condition is what it is-it's not the worst that it could be. The doctor was very smart, to the point and we shall just wait and watch for now.
So I drove my Mom to the subway, and after my Mom got out the car, I called my Dad and filled him in also.
But it wasn't till I got home that I sort of decompensated a bit, just thinking about how many nights my parents were on call, at the hospital, with the other kids, watching over. And I thought about the grandmother at the waiting room and the bottomless, the endless supply of love and worry and support that goes from a grandparent to a child and then to a grandchild.
So I'm going to sleep a little verklempt but tomorrow is another day.
Make sure you all tell your parents how much you love them because it can never be said enough and never be heard enough.
