Adagio

Most people claim that time passes too swiftly. Parents in particular. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t hear someone exclaim—at a birthday party, at the worrying of a loose tooth, at the advent of kindergarten, in celebration of a baby’s first steps—”They grow up so fast!” No, they don’t. Not always. When parenting a special needs child, one with delays in development, the reverse is true. Time passes slowly. Sure there are still the loose teeth, the outgrown corduroys, the first days of school. The body grows, and time passes, but we are parenting in adagio. There is still music playing but at a pace significantly slower and often less dynamic than the usual exciting, staccato rhythms of life with children. Sometimes, in this special kind of life, time plays out like a dirge. Particularly during the frequent illnesses you have no control over, or during the IEP [individualized education plan] meetings where for several hours a number of well-meaning people tell you, unrelentingly, just how behind your child is, or during the tantrums so inappropriate that it is anything you can do to make the seconds speed by before you can leave Target. Superficial, yet critical: I have been watching the same Elmo’s World episodes for nearly 10 years. I can no longer understand parents who bemoan the passage of time; I crave it. And yet, I also fear it because with each year, my son’s age splits like a widening gulf between the years and his capabilities. My 10 year old is a 3 year old; someday I hope my 25 year old will be my 10 year old.

The hard-won gift of this glacial pace is, however, in those moments when your child, no matter how delayed, shows the mastering of a new skill. Noah did not walk until he was 3 years old. And now, over a year later, I watch him with eyes filled with awe as he runs awkwardly through the grass at our neighborhood park. He did that! It is something he did, that he once hadn’t done! And in those moments, it doesn’t matter in the least that he looks nothing like the other children running around him, that his gait is herky-jerky and he is expressing a level of glee that have most of the kids looking at him like he’s just broken their favorite toy. It doesn’t matter the tears shed or the doctors’ appointments booked or the therapy sessions tolerated. In other words, the time that is past no longer matters. No. Those moments linger like a singular note held after a bold crescendo that is so beautiful, and simple, and clear that it is physically painful the longer it is held, and yet, you can only savor it as long as it lasts.