Just Another day at the Park

"Why does she need those?" Elias asks as we head out the back door for a morning of errands, Olive holding Elias's old blue canes.

"She doesn't. She just loves you that much."

Olive swings both canes forward, plants them ahead of her and jumps to catch up. She does this through the parking lot to Geneva Woods Pharmacy where we pick up Elias's incontinent supplies.

"Nice crown, " the man behind the counter tells Olive, who is dressed in a red polka-dotted dress, sneakers, and a handmade sticker-adorned pink paper crown.

She smiles and gives him a look that says: I know it got it going on.

As I leave the pharmacy, I notice that the sun still shines in West Anchorage, away from the mountains where clouds carrying a weeks worth of upcoming rain have begun to gather taking over the blue sky that graced our lives this past week. Not ready to give up the sunshine yet, I decide to postpone the grocery store and head to Westchester Lagoon to play by the water.

"Why did we turn this way?" Elias asks, my backseat GPS who knows the city streets better than I do though I've driven them for almost 15 years and he will never drive them on his own.

"I dont know the car just turned this way."

"What are we doing?" he laughs.

Olive laughs and repeats, "What are we doing?"

"I have no idea, the cars just driving us somewhere."

Elias claps his hands and kicks his feet, his body unable to contain his excitement. My boy loves adventures and could spend hours driving around to new places.

"This is very adventury!" Olive says and instead of correcting her grammar I repeat her words.

"It is adventury."

Both kids smile big when they recognize Westchester, with its newer playground, bike trails, and duck-filled lagoon--and they both grab their canes to join the crowd of children already playing.

I remember when the curious stares of others that followed Elias around public places made my heart skip, and its not that I'm immune to the attention now, its just that I've moved on to worry about other issues like will he knock over a small child or grab onto the wrong person's arm and announce, "I need a change." 

Elias walking with canes dropped to the bottom of my worry list, so it doesn't hit me until all the heads turn that seeing two children enter the playground with adaptive equipment, one who uses canes like mini pole-vaults, may be a bit odd.

(Just an elaborate plot to use an accessible parking pass: Here kids, use these, shh, pretend.)

Elias and Olive ditch their canes by the side of the play equipment and I stand near another Mom of two young boys. "Of course, whatever brother does you have to do too," she says to both me and her toddler who waddles after big brother.

"I hear ya, my daughter chose to come to the park with an old pair of her brother's canes."

"Oh, she doesn't need them?"

"No," I smile.

"I thought she was moving awfully well with them."

"Yeah, no she's perfectly able."

Elias, on the other hand, is about to step on a three-year-old's hands on the web climber so I stand nearer to him, coaching him along. Olive takes off on her own and I easily release her to this world of striving to see how far you can go, knowing she'll navigate with ease.

"Look how high I am!" Elias says to me and to every parent nearby, repeating the statement till its acknowledged. 

Meanwhile, the almost stepped on three-year-old and another buddy keep tagging Elias's ankle and moving away from him. "Got you!" they say.

I worry about Elias trying to tag them back and grabbing them with his muscled walking hands but he doesn't even acknowledge the kids as if they are bland moths fluttering near his legs, harmless and not worthy of attention.

"Look how high I am!" Elias repeats, proud of his perch above my head.

"Yes, you are high." I honor his words, his position, his pride.

When he finally decides to come down, I help guide his feet to the rope and one of the youngsters says to Elias: "You be the monster and chase us."

I dont know whether to be offended that they want him to be the monster or happy that they want him to play and I realize that this place of limbo between disparate feelings is the place I most often call home.

Elias doesn't respond and sometimes in situations like this I wish I were him, oblivious to the social webbing that both stitches us together and pulls us apart.

"Dont you want to play with us?"

"No." Elias doesn't look at the boy.

"Why not?"

Elias surprises me by actually answering, "Because I'm doing my own thing."

He crawls out from under the climbing web and heads toward the big platform swing where Olive has joined another family.

I stand in the sunshine, facing the dark sky of the East, and think about how far we have come.

"Has it gotten easier with Elias?" a neighbor recently asked.

"Yes and no," I replied. "The worries or challenges change as he grows."

I no longer long for him to run with the other kids, equipment free. His canes no longer seem like neon lights broadcasting difference, shouting: Notice me! They seem more like extensions of his arms, mere tools to increase his mobility.

No big deal.

So when little sister wants to use a pair, what begins as a backyard thing morphs into errands and a playground with two kids with canes and what I stress about is not people's reactions to us, but Elias's reactions to others.

And yet on this day, we make it through the various slides, climbers, and swings with only one inappropriate body contact.

(Elias leaned against another boy and would not stop despite the kids protests, causing Olive and the boy to leave Elias alone on the big platform swing, a natural consequence far better than a lecture from Mom. Prior to Elias shoving his head and back into the friendly boy the kid's Dad had been pushing the three kids as they all laughed and said, "Higher, higher!" Just typical natural play until the fun stopping abruptly when Elias sought touch in the wrong way.)

Both kids leave the playground with ease when I notice a Boys and Girls Club van pull up and decide its time for a new location. No public refusals or tantrums. Just two kids with canes listening to their mother.

Before leaving the lagoon we take turns throwing a stick in the water for Tonsina, both kids dropping one cane in the grass so they have an arm free to throw, Elias his right, Olive left, me in the middle trying not to get wet.

Olive discovers a little trail through the tall grass at the water's edge and says, "Elias, do you want to go on this trail with me?"

"Mom, do you want to come too?"

"You go, I'll watch from here."

Elias surprises me again by saying, "Ok." 

And I watch as Olive, using canes like her big brother, leads him away from me, on an adventure of their own, away from the darkening clouds, towards the water and the West where the sky remains bright blue, like Elias's impenetrable eyes.

 

 

Comments

[Tabatha]

This post has so much love and understanding it. I like that it is "just another day at the park"!

[Christy]

Thank you Tabatha!

[Kristen H]

I had the exact same reaction as Tabatha! Your descriptions are so vivid I felt like I was there with you all, enjoying the sun and the park. Great post, Christy.

[Noel Dennehy]

So many changes and I just want to hug Olive for giving so much comfort to her brother and not knowing it- love the cane parade. You are such a fabulous mother, wife and counselor with so much on your shoulders. This was a great blog!!!

[Christy]

Ah thank you Noel and Kristen, the cane parade was a fun day. Interstingly Elias hasnt wanted her to bring "her canes" on another car ride since.