The Fight is Worthy of You

Almost every parent of a child with a limb difference will tell you, at least as the parent, that living with a limb difference is very manageable. Yes, there are OT and PT sessions and visits to Shriners and sometimes for adopted children, for whom English is a second language, there are also speech classes, but it’s still very doable.

But then there are those days. There are those days when it all seems to fall apart. There are those days when it’s hard to watch your child struggle even when she ultimately succeeds. There’s that day when you’re too tired to cook (probably from all the shuttling to OT and PT and doing home therapy), so you all go out for Mexican. That will be the day that another mother loudly shushes her kids for asking her about the little girl with one arm. That mom will ironically tell her kids they need to be quiet so as to not make anyone uncomfortable all the while making you wince as you and your chip dig deeper into the salsa bowl.

There’s the day when the little boy at Lego club asks you why your daughter only has one arm. You respond to him simply and directly in a manner that 9 times out of 10 works that she was just born that way. He’ll tell you it’s weird and you’ll look him in the eye and respond with absolute authority, “No, it’s awesome.” He’ll turn up his nose at you and sneer, “no, it’s not” and you’ll want to deck an eight year old and the parents who raised him to be so contemptuous of others.

Those days are hard.

Here’s what I want my kids, differently abled and otherwise, to know about days when it’s hard to keep the faith, when it’s a fight to persevere and remain steadfast, when it’s a struggle to remain hopeful and grace-filled: that fight is worthy of you.

It’s not that you are worthy of the fight. No, sir. That fight is worthy of you. You are a warrior of valor, a soldier of strength. That fight is ugly and onerous because it must contend with the likes of you. When the field of battle feels steep and the fighting too long, remember this. You are a force to be reckoned with. Mighty is your mountain, deep are your rivers of truth. The fight, beautiful one, is worthy of you.