Thursday, 29 July 2010

• “TREVOR’S WORLD”

  
  
  
  

  (Submittals for Chicken Soup For the Soul; Children with Special Needs)

  I have a son named Trevor
  he’s not like you and me
  when he was born he changed our life
  in ways we couldn’t see

  In his crib we hung up mobiles
  he loved to watch them spin
  but his cows never quite “jumped the moon”
  as we sat and wondered when:   

  He would communicate, or talk to us
  we looked for any sign
  but he didn’t progress in a “normal” way
  he was “locked” inside his mind

  And so began the visits
  to the hospitals, and such
  but when they came back they always said
  “we can’t do very much”

  He is autistic, also PDD
  and epileptic too
  he’s apraxic with low muscle tone
  “there’s not much you can do”

  So, medications special diets
  and therapy we tried
  to help our son in every way
  as we sometimes sat and cried

  He had no sense of danger,
  could not tell right from wrong
  he could not be left alone at all
  we would watch him all day long

  He would climb on tables and TV’s
  would stand and reach from chairs
  he was more adept at mountain skills
  than he was on normal stairs

  And if left alone in a yard or lot
  he would just begin to go
  there was nothing that would stop him
  and he didn’t even know

  Where he wanted to end up
  it mattered not one bit
  because hours and days could pass on end
  before he chose to sit

  He is thirteen now and at a school
  which is a very special place
  where there are angelic saints who teach him
  with care and gentle grace

  Trevor knows what he is saying,
  he communicates by sign
  he makes you understand him
  it just takes a little time

  We communicate by touching
  there’s some things which give him calm
  like running thread along his leg
  or by massaging his little palm

  It surprises me when I meet the ones
  who care for him at school
  or the ones who he rides horses with
  or the instructor at the pool

  He can’t play sports or army
  and scouts and bikes won’t do
  but there’s another world for kids like Trev
  that these people take them to

  Its a place that lets them know
  that they have ability and right
  to participate in all we do
  regardless of their plight

  And while its hard on families
  to care for kids like this
  Trevor has released me,
  and has shown me what I missed

  With my other kids I’d focus
  on achievement and on grades
  on pushing hard, cause it takes so much
  to succeed in things these days

  But Trevor’s goals are not the same
  as they are for me and you
  to watch him simply laugh and smile
  he’s as happy as he can be

  I go with him into his world
  away from all the “stuff”
  from the things that drive us crazy
  which really is all fluff

  He smiles and signs “I love you”
  his way of saying thanks
  “for doing this little thing with me”
  he knows how much it takes

  I think he knows more than he says
  or can communicate to me
  but if he wasn’t born this way
  there’s a place I’d never see.

  As parents of disabled kids
  though hard beyond belief
  they have a way of taking back
  a small part of that grief

  And God or nature works this way
  by allowing us to deal
  by finding something, however small
  in a way to make us feel

  That our efforts are not all in vain
  that there really is a plan
  that teaches us all to learn
  “accept me as I am”

  Though immune from all the problems
  that most of us do face
  he doesn’t care, he brings me there
  to his special little place.

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