The Folly Of Wishing

Yesterday, we had the good fortune to score some really good tickets to a Braves Game. We sat directly behind the dugout, albeit on the visitor's side. But we could have hocked a loogie on Chipper Jones as he stood at third base, the wisdom of which was hotly debated by my boys.

We have never ever been that close before and we were all kind of jazzed about that. We took full advantage of the amenities, which included a waitress to fetch us all the overpriced and undercooked ballpark fare we could hold. Or, afford. Despite having free tickets we still managed to spend a ridiculous amount of money.

The weather was fine...clear and a little chilly, but perfectly comfortable if one was properly dressed.

I did not have a good time.

Diminutive One, as is often the case, made concentrating on the game impossible. He flipped his seat up and down. He tore the paper menu into strips and then threw them up into the air like confetti. He hummed. He whistled. He jiggled his leg. He stood up. He sat down. He climbed into the row behind us. He clambered back. He stood on his seat and nearly landed in the laps of the people in front of us. Three times. He went to the restroom. Three times. He did the wave long after it had died down, popping up and down like some maniacal jack in the box. He jabbered non-stop, asking a continuous stream of questions until I was nearly apopleptic with irritation.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you know that this is nothing new.

DO has always been Spirited and was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Usually, I deal with his behavior with a sort of resigned acceptance. It is often unpleasant and frustrating and wholly unrelaxing to take him places, but I can't confine him to the house for the rest of his natural born days. That would be a whole lot easier, but it would be unforgiveably cruel and certainly would not serve his best interests.

I try to avoid activities that require him to be still for a long period of time, but I don't think we should always have to cater to his needs. I don't think the entire family should be held captive by his diagnosis. So we just accept that some outings will be more challenging than others. And mostly, we are okay with that. We've become so accostomed to it that I don't think we'd know what to do with a meek and quiet child.

But last night, I just didn't want to be accepting. I didn't want to deal with it. I just wanted to watch the damn game. And so I spent the entire evening wishing that he could just be like other kids.

Seated across the aisle from us was a man sitting all by himself. He was an older fella, with the burnished skin of a man who has lived his life outdoors. He had a pleasant face with big soulful brown eyes. They were sad, but kind. During the first couple innings, I saw him scribbling industriously on a piece of ragged cardboard he had torn from an empty Budweiser carton. He was obviously making a sign of some sort, and I was wildly curious about what it would say. At last he finished and held it up to the camerman directly in front of the dugout. It read,

"LAST STOP. I have been to every Major League ballpark in the USA."

The cameraman blatantly ignored him, which I thought was a shame. What a wonderful human interest story it would have made.

Husband struck up a conversation with the man. He had indeed been to every ball park in the United States. It had taken him three years. Husband asked him if he had a ball from every park and he shook his head regretfully. But he did have a hat from every single one, he told us cheerfully.

Husband inquired as to why he was all by himself for such a momentous occasion. The man's face fell a little and those big brown eyes looked even sadder. He glanced at my boys wistfully, gave a small forlorn little smile and said, "My sons did not want to come with me."

Suddenly I felt ashamed of myself.

I had spent the entire evening wishing for something that can never be, instead of being grateful for what is.

It's an easy trap to fall into this wishing, when you have a child like Diminutive One, and I sometimes worry that I have wished his entire life away.

When he was an infant I wished he would just sleep. When he was a toddler, I wished he could just speak. When he was four, I wished so fervently for Kindergarten that it simply could not come fast enough. And every year since then I have wished that life with him could just be easier. I have wished for answers that will probably never come. I have wished for normalcy.

All that wishing when I should have been celebrating.

I have a child. A bright, creative, fantastically complex and endlessly challenging but marvelously unique and infinitely curious child.

And he is with me.

Every day I can touch him, smell his hair, pat his deliciously plump behind. Every day I can look into his face and see my mother's freckles, my husband's grin, my father's humor. Every day I can see with my own eyes that he is safe and happy and healthy.

My wish for today, is that I can appreciate here and now, what will be gone before I know it. Soon he will be lost to his own life. And then I will be wishing to have back all those years I wished away.

I wish...not to wish anymore.