Pointed

This time last fall, Celia started school.  It was suggested that she might benefit from more socialization with peers.  Maybe she didn't point because she didn't see other children pointing.  Maybe she would draw and stack blocks and start talking again if she saw other children do those things.  So she started going to a fabulous facility, one day a week for two hours, as part of their Parent's Day Out program. 

But she didn't point, and she didn't regain speech.  And although she tried to keep up with the other toddlers and although the teachers were good to her, her differences became more pointed.

 

Celia - first day of school - Oct. 2008

Celia only went to school five times.  She didn't get to make friends on the playground.  She'll never do a book report or trade items from her lunchbox, she'll never get to struggle with algebra or decide whether to try out for cheerleader or join the track team.  When I start to think about the things she won't get to take part in, the things we'll miss out on doing with her, I look at her and she points me back to the realization that if it weren't for her, we would have missed so much.  Not academic lessons, but there are lessons and they have meaning and we are learning.  Plucked from "normal life," on crooked paths and from different vantage points, we're looking and listening and trying to learn from what we've been given.  And we are not disappointed.

JEB