{"id":1795,"date":"2010-11-13T21:11:07","date_gmt":"2010-11-14T02:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2010-11-14T06:50:11","modified_gmt":"2010-11-14T11:50:11","slug":"the-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/the-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

The name Nathaniel comes from the Hebrew name ‘Nethan’el<\/em>‘ meaning “God has given” [1]<\/a><\/sup>[2]<\/a><\/sup> (from the Hebrew words nathan<\/em> “has given” + el<\/em> “God”).– Wikepedia
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Tomorrow, November 15, is Nat’s 21st birthday.\u00a0 During the first years of Nat’s life, I was the only one who knew<\/em> that there was something — .\u00a0 But even I didn’t know that.\u00a0 Plagued by self-doubt and low self-esteem, I denigrated my instinct; I looked away from what I saw.\u00a0 It was too hard.\u00a0 I even had to convince Ned, the love of my life, the smartest person I know. I had been alone in my life, but those two years — 1989-1991 — were the loneliest I ever faced.\u00a0 During the day, it was the baby and me.\u00a0 Nat and Mommy.\u00a0 Trying to do the baby-and-mother thing, but actually swimming through a lot of murky, viscous, water.<\/p>\n

But I was<\/em> doing the baby-and-mother thing.\u00a0 I was.\u00a0 Going on walks with the stroller.\u00a0 Reading baby books.\u00a0 Filling sippy cups.\u00a0 Teaching first words.\u00a0 Enough love to fuel a hydrogen bomb.<\/p>\n

It just didn’t feel like I was doing it right because I had no self-confidence.\u00a0 I also had no model in my mind of atypical motherhood.<\/p>\n

This is an old story.\u00a0 But every time something happens, it becomes new again.\u00a0 I’m thinking about his imminent important birthday.\u00a0 I’m thinking about how I went to Disneyworld with Nat just last week.\u00a0 I’m thinking about how he’s traveled to Colorado three times, and only once was that with us.\u00a0 I’m thinking about how he moved out of his home, away from his family, and simply adjusted.\u00a0 I’m thinking about the lights.<\/p>\n

The lights being left on, and how that used to drive Nat to tantrums.\u00a0 How he still hates outside lights left on, but now he tells us, once or twice, paces a bit, sucks his thumb, and then forgets about it.<\/p>\n

So I’m thinking about before he was diagnosed and how I told my dad that he could read — or maybe he was simply memorizing. But still.\u00a0 I remember feeling this hot pride, that grabbed me by the throat so that I could barely speak.\u00a0 But I told Dad that day how finally I could feel hopeful, that despite how things so rarely seemed to go the way they were supposed to with Nat, finally he had something that was really really amazing.\u00a0 “You’re going to find he’s gifted,” Dad said with smiling certainty.\u00a0 Nat was gifted.\u00a0 He was odd because he was gifted!\u00a0 I grabbed onto it to keep from drowning. See?\u00a0 I was going to have it all, after all!<\/p>\n

I waited for this giftedness, this brilliance, to show itself some more.\u00a0 I waited for the warmth of knowing that I was right, and that he was okay.\u00a0 It did not come.\u00a0 I felt myself letting go, more and more.\u00a0 Each new thing I had to do was like a sell-out:\u00a0 going to preschool felt like the end of his innocent childhood.\u00a0 Now he was a “special needs” kid.\u00a0 Not only not<\/em> gifted, but actually a kid with problems.<\/p>\n

There were occasional glimmers, times when I would revisit the whole idea that maybe this was all a bad dream, that Nat was really just fine, just misunderstood.\u00a0 Those were the times I wanted to take him out of school, and close him in from the rest of the world.\u00a0 I wanted to go back to the cocoon of his babyhood, but his babyhood wasn’t really ever like that.\u00a0 Still, there were these flashes of the boy he really was. Small things like learning to do chores.\u00a0 Cooking.\u00a0 Swimming.<\/p>\n

I began to see that although nothing about this boy was easy or obvious, some good things were very very possible.<\/p>\n

Bar mitzvah at thirteen, first friend at fifteen.\u00a0 Sleepaway camp in Aspen.\u00a0 Working at Papa Gino’s. Moving out.<\/p>\n

Attending a talk with me<\/em> at a conference.<\/p>\n

That feeling, that tightness in my throat is with me a lot these days.\u00a0 Dad was right.\u00a0 I was right.\u00a0 Nat is gifted.\u00a0 Not a genius, nor a savant.\u00a0 Not “normal.”\u00a0 Not cured.\u00a0 Not an angel or a saint.\u00a0 But in living his life to his best potential, being good and smart and brave, he has given me faith that good things can happen.\u00a0 That’s the gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The name Nathaniel comes from the Hebrew name ‘Nethan’el‘ meaning “God has given” [1][2] (from the Hebrew words nathan “has given” + el “God”).– Wikepedia Tomorrow, November 15, is Nat’s 21st birthday.\u00a0 During the first years of Nat’s life, I was the only one who knew that there was something — .\u00a0 But even I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-sX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1800,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions\/1800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}