You ever hear something that knocks the wind out of you? Breaks your heart, sends you into a spiral and makes you fight back months of emotions you try to only let out in the shower or at night after everyone has gone to sleep?
My sweet three year old says things that do that to me more often than I'd like to admit.
Maybe it's because his speech is so advanced.
Maybe it's because he's so incredibly smart.
Maybe it's because he lives with an awful neuromuscular disease that has robbed him of a normal childhood.
Maybe it's because I still haven't fully dealt with the grief that comes with having a medically complex child.
It doesn't matter why he says these things or why I’m so affected by it each time. The fact is, he says them. And every time my heart breaks into a million tiny pieces. I'd do anything to make this stupid disease go away.
He's been talking a lot lately about walking when he's a grown up. How he can't wait to grow up because then he'll be able to walk and won't have to be carried.
He's also been wanting yellow rain boots to jump in rain puddles like his sister.
But the most heart wrenching thing he's ever said to me was at the race track, while watching his sister and the other kids play at the top of the bleachers. He wanted to go up there with them and I told him he couldn't because it was too dangerous for him to sit up there. His reply was "But if I walked I could. Momma, will you teach me how to walk?"
There has never been another thing said to me that wrecked me as much as that question did. My sweet little guy. He knows. He knows how much he's missing out on. He knows he should be able to do what the other kids do. But he doesn't know why he can't. He doesn't understand that most people think he'll never walk. He doesn't realize how long it's going to take before he maybe, possibly, might be able to take a step on his own.
He thinks it's as easy as his Momma just teaching him. And God, do I wish I could. I'd do anything to be able to teach my baby to walk. To help him live a more normal life and get to do and enjoy all the things the other kids can.
But I can't. And I had to tell him that. I had to tell my two year old that I can't teach him how to walk. That I can't fix his legs.
I'll never forget that moment. His little voice and those gut wrenching words. They'll play over and over through my mind. Forever.
"Momma, will you teach me how to walk?"
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