Perspective, Baby, Perspective
My daughter and I saw “August Rush” last night. A really good movie, even though I do not have a musical bone in my body. We came home and my daughter immediately picked up her guitar and tried to copy the moves August made in the movie. It was cute, and a little sad for me.
I’m never sure what my daughter hears. She has a bilateral hearing loss. She cannot hear high frequencies in either ear, and in one ear her hearing loss has progressed into the mid-frequencies. Enlarged endolymphatic duct and sac syndrome. Hopefully it won’t progress any further, but it has and could continue to do so. She needs to avoid any blows to the head, loud noises, and air pressure changes. Any of those could cause an immediate and irreversible increase in the loss.
Seeing the movie and having these thoughts reminded me of a conversation my daughter and I had over dinner a few weeks ago. She asked me if I could have one wish…anything in the world…what would it be? I told her my wish would be that she had perfect hearing. Hmmmmm. That puzzled her.
I asked her the same. And almost because it seemed she was “supposed” to, she said perfect hearing…and a thin body (don’t we all wish that). I could tell she was troubled. After a few minutes, she said “Mom, I want to change my answer. If I could have one wish, I would want to have shapeshifting powers. You know, like Mystique in X-Men.”
The extent of my knowledge about shapeshifting abilities is limited to episode 49 of Family Guy. The family is exposed to nuclear waste and gains super powers. Peter gets shapeshifting. I told her that it was perfectly fine to change her answer. And you know, I have changed my answer too.
If anyone grants me one wish, I will ask that my daughter gets shapeshifting powers.
Filed under: Life Lessons, Family, Normalcy
First of all, this post brought tears to my eyes. Know what I took away from it? Sometimes the best gift I can give to my child is wanting the same things for him that he wants himself. Thanks for that.