After months and months of red tape and hauling this little kid around in my arms until they’re big enough to frighten Madonna, Atti finally has his own way of getting around in the world.
It’s very bittersweet for me. Part of me watches him in his chair, excited to see the world on a whole new level and rushing right into the thick of things, and I’m thrilled. Thrilled that he can have some more independence, that he can find a way to get around in this world, that he can now be part of the pack of kids causing a ruckus. And the other part of me is crushed as the last bit of denial that cushioned my hopes no longer makes any sense.
With cerebral palsy, you never know what it’s going to look like until it starts looking like it. Doctors predicted that he would never walk, but I was convinced they were wrong. I still am. I still think he’s going to walk, and maybe just use the wheelchair on long days. But the overachiever in me didn’t just want the doctors to be wrong, I wanted them to be so wrong they’d be embarrassed. I wanted Atti to be walking so well and so soon that we’d never even get to this point. I needed to think that to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but here we are. And it’s looking like what I never wanted to believe it would look like.
But then I watch him in action, and the sweet so far outweighs the bitter that it might even be better this way. To watch him not just blossom, but explode as he relates to the whole world in a different way, it just makes me weep. It’s like magic, his speech has improved, his behavior has improved, because now he’s not just in his own little world, he’s found his way into ours.
And he’s going to explore every bit of it.