They Always Had Nice Coats

If raising kids wasn’t hard enough

We had a newborn son, as well as a two year old son. I was in a wheelchair. Looking back 20 years, I have trouble remembering how we did it. Raising children is the toughest job on the planet. Disable one parent, and the challenges multiply exponentially. I can remember days when I thought there was no way we could do it. In response, my mother always told me, “They will grow up anyway.” That holds true no matter what your challenges may be. Time marches on. Our sons are now 20 and 22. Fortunately, I recovered enough from the crippling stroke to be able to be a good mother. I re-learned how to walk, drive, cook and take care of myself. We were lucky to be able to afford hired help for the first four years of the newborn’s life. Yet, on many levels, I was not an active mother.

I watched videos last weekend from our sons’ early years. It seemed as if every moment of baby #1’s life was unique. Each move was well documented. This is common among new parents. Your first baby is the first one in the world to burp, poop, smile and laugh. I was physically fit for his first two years, and was seen carrying him, playing with him, and taking care of him.

Since I was six months pregnant with my second baby when I had the stroke, the scenes from his early life were mostly missing from the archive. It…