A Mother's Love...

Wonderfully Made: Loving and Teaching in a Different Light by: Naima Smith Moore

Pgs. 72-73; 81-82

A Mother's Love is Patient, Perseveres & Never Fails

A Mother’s Love is Patient. Having a child with a different ability has taught me to be patient in more ways than one. I used to have a one track mind regarding timeliness and not really an understanding spirit for those who were habitually late without hearing their story. Well, after having a child with a different ability who beats to his own drum, this mindset quickly changed. Having patience is defined as the ability to accept or tolerate delay. This was a lesson that I had to get used to. Tyler entered preschool and kindergarten and one of the prevailing issues was one particular behavior called “flopping”. Flopping is defined as the means to fall or to hang loose. Well, someone with Trisomy 21, has the ability to relax all his muscles and it becomes dead weight when he flops. As mentioned previously, Tyler struggles at times expressing himself. For example, if we were enjoying an activity and did not want to leave, most people verbally express displeasure with departure. Tyler, on the other hand, most times will not choose to use his words. Instead, he will flop by sitting down on the floor. Because of Tyler’s size, he knows that, in most instances, if he flops, no one could get him up from that position without a real serious struggle and/or injury. Tyler knows that when he flops, he wins the battle. As his parents, we let anyone who will have immediate supervision over Tyler know what the possibilities are, especially during the times of transition, which have been Tyler’s most often and frequent triggers. This behavior also manifests itself during any period of change for Tyler. The change can be with people, places, scenery, routines, expectations, speech volumes, voice tones, the word “no” and rules. We realized that anyone interacting with Tyler must be explicit, direct, without any distractions or there was a great possibility, he would flop. The waiting period to change this behavior could be as long as hours or as immediate as a minute. I have learned to be patient, build in sufficient time when planning any outings and communicate if we will be late or not in attendance if need be.

Everyday is different and most times predictable. However, when it is not, we are reminded that Love is Patient.

A Mother’s Love always Persevere and it never Fails. This is the kind of love that continues in a course of action even in the face of difficulty. Love is truly an action word. It requires one to do something. It requires one to dig deep, to look beyond one’s self and push forward no matter what. That is what a mother’s love is like for a child with a different ability. There are times when you just want to cry or have cried out of frustration because you did not know what else to do. You feel like giving up because some days it just seems incredibly hard to manage the behaviors and there is no outlet for you. You still have to be mommy to everyone else, wife, co-worker, manager, friend, family member, leader and balance it all out. A mother’s love is love in action and Dr. Seuss describes a mother’s love best, “ You know you are in love when you cannot fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Tyler, thank you for making my dreams a reality by choosing me as your mother. Everyday is different and most times predictable. However, when it is not, we are reminded that Love always perseveres and it never fails.