“Are you a kid like me?” she asked. Puzzled, she was a bit confused, because I sat with her on the bottom steps and together we drew pictures of each other.
She apologized because she drew my hair with an orange crayon explaining that the brownish one is lost, and she drew my dress with a purple crayon because “the blue one was all used up” and my shoes magically became green because green is the colour of grass and we walk on grass - which makes it the perfect colour for shoes.” “Besides,” she said, “they’re only colours and we can change them whenever we want cause we’re the boss of them”
“So, are you a kid or what?” she asked again. “What do you think?” I concentrated on reproducing the brown and blue stripes of her shirt with the orange and purple crayons.
“Hmmmmmmm.” Brow furrowed, she sat back on her heels and studied me carefully.
“I don’t know how big you are because you are sitting in that wheelchair. And you
aren’t laughing as much as Nanny’s friends You aren’t talking with them, you’re sitting here with me.. And the pictures you’re drawing are a lot like mine. You have trouble staying inside the lines too.
It didn’t take her long to reach her conclusion. “Yes, I think you’re a kid too.” Satisfied, now that the dilemma was solved in her mind, she bent over the picture of me and my cat (yellow of course) with renewed enthusiasm.
An amazingly logical thought process for a six year old girl, even one whose chocolate brown eyes hold the wisdom of the ages deep in their depths. Should I remind her that wheelchairs are the necessary means of transportation of adults as well as children? Is it necessary to explain the frequent stiffness of my face which makes smiling difficult? Should I show her my tremor and how it makes staying inside the lines an impossibility?
Or do I let those thoughts pass and concentrate on her comment about not joining in the conversations being carried on around the room. Once their content and tone would have been important to me. Now they really don’t matter that much at all.
These days their reality has faded into a fantasy world that belongs ‘out there’. Now my reality is savouring the moments spent on the bottom step, drawing pictures and realizing that blue can be purple, shoes should be green so they look like grass and do two kids really need more than half a box of crayons anyway?
| By Lynda McKenzie, May, 2001 |
|
|