Handicap

While I was dawdling around Walmart's baby department yesterday and picking thorough the itty bitty incontinence section, I was having a heck of a time locating those special diapers designed to keep the baby pee out of the pool.  When I couldn't find them in the logical place (ahem, with the DIAPERS), I approached a grandmotherly-looking sales associate and asked if she knew where I could find the Little Swimmers.

"Well now, I have to see who you're getting them for," she said as she shuffled around my cart to steal a peek at who was in the baby carrier.  

Ava looked up from the plastic toy she was flinging back and forth.  "Isn't she just precious!" said Walmart grandma.  I beamed, of course, perfectly willing to accept full responsibility for such a glorious child. 

"Bvvvv!  Bbbbbllurv!" Ava exclaimed through a wide grin and a spray of spit bubbles.  Just keep turning it up, sweet pea, and we'll never get out of here, I thought.

After the typical round of cooing and foot tickling, Walmart G'ma finally reassumed her regular vocal pitch and asked me how old Ava was.  "She's almost five months," I replied, and noticing the concern in her eyes as they passed over my daughter's slight form, I added, "We knew she'd be smaller than most children her age -- she was diagnosed with Down's at birth.  She had surgery when she was three weeks old and was in this hospital for twenty days, but considering all she's had thrown at her, she's thriving."  

Looking back on that decision to lay my momma cards on the table and talk about her medical history and diagnosis, I don't feel like I did anything wrong by stating something that might or might not have been obvious.  I've mentioned it in conversation before, to different responses.  In most instances, the other party would usually take a second glance at her and nod or give a knowing smile, and that would be that.  There have been a couple of times when I've brought it up during the course of a discussion when it's taken someone by surprise, and I've just had to tell myself that they look fish-slapped because they didn't notice things that doctors even had to point out to me when she was born.  Still, no biggie.  I don't expect you to keep up with the minutiae of our lives.  If we don't chat it up like old chums on a regular basis, it wouldn't shock me if you didn't know my beautiful daughter has an extra chromosome. 

Maybe I've just been lucky that no one has said anything terribly tacky about it in my presence, or they've always been fortunate enough to catch me in a diplomatic mood and I could chalk up their insensitivity to sheer ignorance.  

  

Yesterday wasn't one of those days.  I wasn't in the right frame of mind for social hour.  I just wanted to grab our tiny aquatic diapers and skedaddle.  My head was throbbing to the beat of someone's blaring ringtone.  Ava needed a full-sprawl, log-sawin' nap.  I had one foot poised to scram when the woman went and let fly with this bogey:

"You wouldn't have to tell people she has Down's.  Or maybe you could tell them that it's just suspected, but it's not confirmed yet."  Then she looked at me like she'd just solved the New York Times Sunday crossword. 

Apparently it was my turn to have a trout-to-the-temple moment.  What the fool was that kind of lie intended to accomplish?  Why should I, or Ava, or ANYONE be made to feel that a disability is something worthy of a lie?

Thankfully, someone else approached us at that moment and asked her for the same thing I had been hunting for (which means, dear retailers, it must've been in a poorly chosen location!).  I politely ducked out of her company and fled to the shoe department, where I hid amongst the Dr. Scholl's until I could sort my thoughts and figure out why I was so shoe-pitchin' angry.  

She grew up in a generation who looked at these things differently, I assured myself.  

She's just talking out of her south end.  She wasn't thinking.  She was just making conversation. 

I didn't bring up Down Syndrome in order to solicit advice.  I told her so she'd understand how far our girl had come.   Then she advised me to deny it, to act as if I hoped she wouldn't be exactly the way she was.

How would she have felt if she had a granddaughter with unique red hair, and I told her, "Oh, she could always dye it."  

Or what if she had a grandson who was shorter than every one of his classmates, and I advised her to teach him to walk in stilts every day so no one would be the wiser?

How sad to be unable to look things in the eye, acknowledge them for what they are, and just roll them into the snowball of everyday life.  

I think her self-imposed handicap is the actual tragedy.