Ook beschreven in het : Dutch
“Look Ties, a nice pool lift. Especially for you. Wanna try? “
“Hm.” ‘Hm’ is my non-speaking sons language for “Not in a million years baby.”
“Come on, just for a minute. I’ll hold you. “
We’re in a beautiful special needs holiday home in the South of France. Reluctantly, he let’s me lower him in the water. Holding him tight, I feel goose bumps on his contorded body.
“Nice huh?” I try to keep the spirits high.
“Hm.”
“And later on, when you want to get out, just say ‘OU” okay?”
“Ouououououououououou!
The pool is symbolic of the whole vacation. To Rijk (6) and Loes (2) everything is an adventure – from spotting a cricket to a ride in the tourist train – but Ties’ only desire is to go home. Because he is physically unable to entertain himself and is visually challenged, he is almost constantly bored. The gap between him and his siblings is never as great as during the six long weeks the doors of his special needs school are closed.
Back home, Ties and I walk to the most depressing mall in our town. He absolutely loves it there. Probably because the majority of the visitors either speed around in a scoot mobile or sit, while happily chain-smoking, on their walker at the entrance.
Pushing my sons wheelchair, I brood about his future of long stretched days filled with boredom.
Then, out of nowhere, a foreign looking woman approaches us. She’s in her early fifties.
“What a beautifyl boy!,” she beams. “He has cerebral palsey, doesn’t he? I had a son just like him. And just as beautiful.”
She looks me deep in the eye: “Stop worrying. And start enjoying him!”
I begin to cry. I felt like doing so for two weeks anyway, so I’m glad to have a justification: “But what about later, when he’s older?”
“Don’t think about the future! My son died young, I haven’t enjoyed our time together enough.”
She looks at Ties. “This is your angel. Trust me, your future is rosy coloured!” Her Dutch is not so good, she says ‘rosily coloured’.
Shamelessly sobbing in the arms of a woman I only met a few minutes ago, I think of the old TV series “Joan of Arcadia”. A teenage girl got messages from God, all day long, through the mouths of total strangers. She found it totally annoying, which added a comic touch to the rather unctuous series.
I give the woman my number. “I’ll call you!” she cheers as she pedals off on her bike.
Something tells me she’ll do so at exactly the right moment.