The other day, while researching a project, I stubbled upon an old article I’d written about my youngest son (who happens to have Down Syndrome) and the blow to support for kids like him when those in roles of leadership, reveal themselves to be injured, sinful, and corruptible creatures (like we all are). I thought of the words, “you must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect), and realized the reason we need to be better, is not because God will love us if we are, but that the world can’t see God’s love if we don’t. One of the comments confirmed this thought with the words, “You must do more.”
My first reaction was shall we say, less than
enthusiastic. “Lord what now? What was
that more? How could there be more to do?”
But the comment resonated deep.
It was a reminder to me, that nothing happens without God’s consent,
without God’s permission, and that He sometimes puts things and people in front
of us, to help us see what we must confront.
The comment felt like a commission.
I am a mom of a son with special needs. He turned twelve yesterday. We’ve begun discussing with his teachers what
happens next, when he no longer looks like a child, when he isn’t a child, when
he needs to live somewhere other than with us.
I thought about how he will need friends other than his family to
provide the stuff of life that makes life something beyond the ordinary, the routine
and the mundane. He will need us to
start on this hard list of things to do now, if they are to be there for him in
the future. Hard things to face in ordinary time, harder in these days.
“You must do more.” What
was the more? My brain rattled off what I saw as being needs in my other
children as they grappled with the trials of adulthood. He would need hobbies. He would need meaningful
work. He would need income. He would need a network of support to get him to
the doctor or the dentist, or haircuts and to weekly mass. He would need
friends. He would need all these things
to be not imposed upon his life but grown into/grafted into it. His family would be part of this but could
not be all or only.
Why did he need all of this more? Because Covid-19 revealed what happens when
he gets the more of company, of peers, of daily interactions and meaningful
work. He’d learned to make his bed, wash
the dishes and fold towels. During this time of Covid-19, my son learned how to
ride a bike without training wheels, how to pull up Disney on the television
for a quick Muppet break in between Zooms, to set and test a shower and take it
on his own, and to make his own sandwich –ketchup and Oscar Meyer bologna on
white bread, cut into triangles. (I wouldn’t advise it, but he eats every crumb).
Part of why he learned all of this, was the gift of extra time having no place
to go in particular allowed. Part of why he learned this, was his siblings
expected more of him than his mother. His mom would make him breakfast. It was
a form of love and service and habit with no ill will intended, but he needed
to master more skills. Here was the more.
His older brothers and sisters would say, “Make it yourself, like us.” And
didn’t stress if he poured cinnamon toast crunch more full than I would have as
long as he finished it.
One of them even taught him how to scoop it with a measuring
cup to have better portions. He learned to pour the milk too, even when it’s
full. (Though some of us hold our breath when he does the same way I do when a
teen practicing driving gets too close to a mailbox). They
wanted him to be twelve, to be like them, more independent. It would make him
better than he was, more perfect by letting him do things imperfectly.
Every step toward his
independence came for me with a list of worries…would he remember each time to
do what he needed to do? Free will and
freedom, growing up is hard to do, and I suspect, harder on this grown up. The more was as much about taking on, as it
was about surrendering, dying to the self that gave love through service that
now was no longer required so that new service could be given.
“You must do more.” Seemed
like a motto to embrace in this time when all our enjoyments, education, work
and ordinary efforts take extra effort.
Willing to do the more requires we both will to do and do so willingly. When we’re sent from the mass, whether we’ve
watched it on television or been in person, we’re sent, commissioned to do this
very thing, the more. We aren’t merely
to receive passively, but to respond actively in our hearts and allow Christ to
transform our lives. We will go from
being men who fish to fishers of men. We will go from being water to being the
better vintage of wine. We will go from five loaves and two fishes to twelve
baskets left over after feeding five thousand.
I thought about all the ways in which we sometimes get used to things we
should not. Covid-19 taught this through big and little ways. We shouldn’t have become used to long hours
and not having dinner together whenever possible. We shouldn’t have traded in time in commutes
where we served work rather than our families.
The time home also showed me
other ways we shouldn’t have, which Paul’s siblings corrected via natural intervention.
Trisomy 21 means the child has a little extra, a little more. His needs mean we need to do the little extra,
the more his siblings have done with and for him, helped him to do more with
and without them. He could do
more. I should do more. We should do more. Why? Because it has always
been God’s will for all of us, for each of us, to be more than we planned, and do
become more perfect even as we go about the business of living this life imperfectly.
