Imagining
"Mom, how old is my cousin Erick?" "He is six." "Now I can imagine Caleb better... I can imagine him liking Pokemon. I can imagine him drawing. Mom, which do you think would be Caleb's favorite color?" I can imagine my second son, too. I have imagined him hiding behind me at the doctor's office. I have imagined him getting on my lap and asking me to read him a book. I have imagined him holding my hand as we walk. Here I am in a world I had indeed imagined as if looking in a dim mirror. After all, I have seen my reality play out in other families' lives for years in my role of medical interpreter at a children's hospital. Yet you have to live it to really, really know. And in our case, it turns out this world is also beautiful. Now I don't have to imagine how much a child with profound mental retardation can alter your world and shake up your ego. I don't have to imagine how, in spite of it all, you would not want him to be