Today, Kai's legs gave out and he fell to the ground, smacking his head off a toy wagon. For our house, this is not unusual, despite that Kai is nearly 3 years old. You fully expect a child just learning to walk to fall down like this; a child Kai's age is supposed to be more steady.
Except that he wasn't supposed to walk. Except that he doesn't walk like we do, and his legs aren't physically set up in a "normal" fashion. Everything about my son's legs is wrong. And so he walks, but he trips. He falls. His legs give out because he's done too much and they can take no more. So he collapses. And then he cries, because he is hurt. Because he is frustrated.
Because he is angry. So angry.
Autistic does not mean stupid. Special needs does not mean stupid. And Kai is not stupid. He knows, in his own little 3 year old boy way, that he is different. He knows that his brother's legs do not look like his, and that his brother does not struggle the way he does. He knows that his friends can walk and run and jump and skip for hours on end with no problems, no pain, and he cannot. He knows that he wears braces, and they do not. And it makes him angry.
I do not hide from Kai why he has to see the doctors, the therapists, the specialists. He can tell you that his feet are different (he calls them Monkey George feet, of his own volition, because he likes Curious George and thinks it's cool that his feet look like that). He can tell you that he has autism, which he explains by saying that his head has more room in it. And I love that explanation. It is a wonderful explanation, and so much less demeaning than anything else he could've called it. He can tell you that his blood doesn't work the way it should, and that he bleeds more than other kids, and that sometimes he doesn't breathe right and needs his breathing medicine (as he calls it).
But he's growing up, and he's learning, from the kids at the playground and the moms in the stores, that he is not the same as all the other kids. And he's learned, from the reactions of other people, that different is "bad," that it's not okay. He's learned, just by watching his little brother, that there was another way his life could've gone but didn't.
The most heart-breaking thing I will ever hear is my sweet little boy, crying in frustration and anger on my lap because his legs have once again failed him, is "Why, Mommy?"
I don't know why. I will never know why. And I hate that I cannot answer him. And because I have no answer, all I can do is remind him about the zebra in the book my sister bought him before he was even born, before we even knew just how different he would be, the zebra with no stripes. "Little Zebra is different, too, and God loves her just as much as He loves you."
And now that he is asleep on the couch beside me, the tears of frustration dried on his face and his hands wrapped around my arm, and my baby is asleep upstairs, I can cry my own tears of heartache and sorrow for the life he will never have and the hardships I have not wanted to admit he will face. Although I would not change him, and taking away any of what he goes through would inevitably change him, this is one of the many days I rail at God in my own heart and beg to know why, even though I know I will never get an answer in this life.
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