Christmas officially came to my house the year that Gabe began to not only understand Christmas, but also was verbal enough to dictate his first Christmas list to Santa. He was 5 years old. What he requested came as no surprise to us, it was all musical instruments. My son loves music, and despite all his sensory issues with loud noises and certain pitches, his connection to the thump thump thump of the drum bought him closer to us with each beat. It is undeniable, the Ricky Riccardo babaloo gene is alive and well in Gabe.....
Well 4th grade is band year. For the first time the kids get to pick band, and guess who tried out for it....Gabe and Carlos.....and guess what instrument they get to play, take a wild guess....yep, the drums...just kidding, it's the trumpet...My own little Louie & Miles.....
Now, while the inevitable amount of noise that these children will blow out of what I'm hoping are just horns, is not something I'm looking forward to, the thought that my son will be on stage with his brother and other students playing a musical instrument alongside of them, thrills me.
I live in a bit of a parallel universe. I suppose every mom who has a special needs child and other typical special children can relate to this. While you are thrilled, enthralled and relieved every time your typical children meet milestones, every time they shine, every time they make a friend, or join a club, or dream new dreams or just sit with you and talk about their day and what they did, you're heart breaks a little for your special needs kid because the experience is so different. I don't want to take anything away from the privilege of raising Gabe, but I have had to embrace a whole new way of envisioning what a milestone really means for Gabe, and let go of any chronological marker, or any deep seeded wish that maybe one day he could catch up. I have learned to focus on one day at a time. While I can honestly say not a day has gone by where I didn't wonder about what Gabe was thinking, how Gabe was processing the world around him, what he felt, what it would be like to be him, I am grateful that little by little I have been having verbal and non verbal conversations with him, as simple as they may appear...That we could sit together, that we could laugh, that we could just be..... Sometimes I envision what it would be like if my parallel universe could perhaps cross over and exist as one for at least a moment in time.....and then Gabe joined band with Carlos. If all goes well, maybe, just maybe on stage with trumpets in hand, my universe could meet in the middle. But, in the meantime, there are trumpets to get, work to be done, lessons to learn, ears to plug.....
Without a doubt there is a latin jazz beat taking over my heart......percussion, clarinet, piano, the Afro Cuban rhythms that seize the body and then releases it to total abandonment on a dance floor.....and then there's that trumpet.....Arturo Sandoval....music that not only lifts spirits, but twirls, shmies and shakes them as well.......
Who am I kidding, Arturo Sandoval....I'll be lucky if they get the right end of the trumpet in their mouths......and that's hoping it'll go in their mouths....Carlos will do just about anything for a laugh.....Lord help me.......
No comments:
Post a Comment