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THE ONLY ONE
Wednesday Dec. 21, 2011
Last night, catch-up call (to wish her happy b-day) with friend SA (Susan #3); once or twice a year, story swaps, kids-news and, increasingly each year, discussion on the state of our health, our family members and important things that matter.
We met at a meeting dealing with services to kids with developmental disabilities (we each represented boards we sat on) and again several days later at a school band concert where we learned our children (born the same day) were classmates and band-mates.
Learning over our first lunch together that her David and I had been successive suitors of the same former girl-friend generated laughter that became glue that cemented what has since become a 20 yr.+ friendship.
We talked at length about being the only one.
She has siblings, a husband, an ex-husband, another son, friends and extended family – but she is the only one who feels, or bears, the load of responsibility for her disabled son.
This is not a new concept to me. Over 30 yrs. I’ve heard this refrain so many times from families of kids with disabilities. The kids get older, and so do the parents, but there is no off-loading the responsibility that parent (usually the mother) carries all their life. It isn’t fair, they say, to off-load it to their other children, too scary to off-load it to the public guardian, too impossible to back away or to go away . . . though eventually, they will likely die before their children, as we all do, and what then?
Not to put it on same scale - but being an only child with aging parent, some of the dynamics of lone-ness in the role is not dissimilar. But the difference is that my dad speaks, acts, decides and mostly takes care of himself. I am helper, advocate, grocery shopper and driver. I don’t have siblings to share that with. Some days I wish I had helping siblings – but most days I am happy that I get that role, that I don’t have to share it with anyone else. My role does not have an unlimited time to run . . . while SA will have that responsibility, alone, all her life.
I am empathetic, and probably better informed than most about what that role entails – but I don’t know that I could do it.
It doesn’t matter which day, or way, I move through life it seems to be moving at a faster pace – not that I am aging or falling apart at a faster rate, but that everyone else is . . .
Mark Kolke
307,196
P.S.: moving near completion; today is office-move day, phone/computer switch-over and one more carload of gear which I’ll drive shortly after publishing this. I’ll configure, await installer arrival and be functioning normally within minutes . . . or days! Over the next week I’ll move remainder of files, boxes and unsold furniture (need 1 truck, 1 helper, 1 trip), then cleaning, then done. I hope.
column written/ published from Calgary: morning walk: -6C/20F, snow dusting overnight, clear skies, calm, last day of fall, longest night of the year – Gusta can’t seem to go slow for me, no matter how slippery it is . . .
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