danghi's Blog

           
            In the corner of my office hangs a picture of a little boy, it was taken long, long ago. His eyes look different, his glasses thick but his smile melts my heart and he was my entire world...........a lifetime ago. He wears a gray sweater, black tie and I remember dressing him that day for the pre school picture, he looked so handsome, so adorable.
 
            We never married and I was 23 when she told me she was leaving, our son just 3 months old and handicapped, it would be many years before he saw her again.
 
            My life was rocked to its very core the day she left as it would appear I knew how to make babies, not baby formula. I had begun an unbelievable journey into a new and foreign world. A world filled with baby strollers, diaper bags, and unimaginable odors.  I'd be a liar if I said I was the perfect father or there were few mistakes made. The truth is, I had no idea what I was doing and we blindly stumbled onward, hand in hand.
           
            The successful world of dating that I so embraced as a young man suddenly shuns me like a rabid dog. It turns out I looked better with an acoustic guitar in my lap then a retarded child resting on my hip. The few women I did see, didn't linger long and I can't say that I blame them. After the traditional date of a movie, drinks and romantic eye contact that seems to linger a little longer then necessary, we'd return to my home where we were greeted at the door by a teenage babysitter and a little guy who'd climbed into my lap and happily nestle in for the remainder of the evening. Often times and with the deepest regrets imaginable, my last words whispered were,  "Perhaps another time?" 
 
            A job opportunity too good to be true is offered by a successful businessman with stipulations uttered in a gruff voice; loose your luggage, put him in a home, it's for his own good, you can't raise him and be an effective employee here.       I understand sur.
 
            There were many voices back then and they spoke words of dissolution and doubt but they only served to bolster my determination. This baby is my son, he deserves everything I could do, everything I could give.
           
            There were times when my soul cried out in anguish as if the weight of the world rested upon my shoulders. Long stays at the hospital sleeping nights in chairs at bedside were exhausting. Late night trips to the emergency room offer little time for sleep. Calls from friends saying, hey, the hog roast was fun, you should have been here, reminds me of how much I've missed and that I sleep alone at the height my youth and sexual stamina.  Yet somehow, I've never felt so alive, never felt so needed and most importantly, never felt so loved.
 
            Days turn into months and months into years as his accomplishments are a plant of slow growth. Underwear with its three wholes is a confusing task for a little boy with two legs, the endless attempts to put them on proves frustrating. Buttoning shirts, tying shoestrings, counting to 10 and the ABC's seemed insurmountable, yet he learned. In the mist of all my teaching, I often wondered who was the pupil and who the teacher, as it seemed he taught me in return, patience,  compassion and unending humility.
 
            No man can stop the hands of time and as the years passed by, he grew tall. I married late in life, age 37, amazingly, to a young woman that worked with the handicapped.  My son still lives with us and probably always will, he does okay with the hand he was dealt.
 
             I often look back with great fondness through the years of my youth. The never-ending difficulties we faced and the magical transformation that was my life. Although I don't have to look too far you see. In the corner of my office hangs a picture of a little boy, it was taken long, long ago. His eyes look different, his glasses thick but his smile melts my heart and he was my entire world...........a lifetime ago.
 

While some would relentlessly guard and protect until death, others seem complacent and show little to no concern. I have been slapped, bitten, hissed at and run off on more then one occasion by an angry mom. Unfortunately, that is not the case on this day, abandoned and sure to die on its own; I have a one day old turkey chick in my office under a heater. It clings to life by a slender thread and her name shall be Abhinivesha, “One who clings to life”