chance & choice

August 25, 2013 § 8 Comments

This week I was reminded of a valuable lesson: chance presents opportunities, choice empowers us to create change. One small act of faith accompanied by a series of intentional decisions have created an opportunity for our family to embrace uncertainty and for me to see myself more clearly.

I hesitated to share my last post, to speak of a new academic worry openly and to label an educator closed-minded. When I did, I wrote: I admire uncomfortable honesty. I write often of challenges to mark my children’s experiences and to center myself in greater self-awareness. In honoring our story I share difficult truths,  this time I uncovered reflections of self of which I am not proud; my own uncomfortable truth.

My initial instinct in response to a brief, hurtful encounter with an educator was to shuffle my son’s schedule to avoid heartache and headaches. I wanted to shield him from unkindness or shortsightedness to create an atmosphere where discrimination wouldn’t clutter potential. Sometimes chance highlights choices to help us better see ourselves.

I was also hiding from the struggles I knew would shadow our school year. I labeled another but didn’t name my own shortsightedness. As the mother of a special needs child, when faced with the responsibility of advocating for my son and similarly challenged peers I chose an easier path. Chance humbled me with a difficult choice. I could leave my son in a classroom with a teacher that did not yet understand his needs or I could place him in the company of an unkind peer who had systematically bullied him for over a year.

Measuring experiences against uncertainty, flushing out potential from fears, weighing worries for the lesser of two harms I realized I could not so easily avoid the discomfort of an uncertain classroom. In both instances there is a threat of harm, an absence of control. The greater truth is we cannot so easily orchestrate our lives to avoid our fears.

If one choice hadn’t created new conflict I would have hidden from an opportunity, overlooking my son’s strengths and our abilities as a family to navigate a difficult experience. In focusing on protecting my child from harm, I almost overlooked his ability to inspire and inform. I expect this year will be riddled with challenges, more so for the uphill struggle, but the possibility that we can make a difference is encouraging. I am taking a chance and making a choice. I cannot shield my son from every unkindness, but I can have faith in his ability and my own to navigate difficult experiences with integrity.

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