A Kind of Prelude

A Kind of Prelude

Future Reflections Winter 1987, Vol. 6 No. 1
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KIND OF PRELUDE
by Ann Rogers Oster
(Editor's Note: The following is an
excerpt from a speech which was published
in Coalition Quarterly. Although it
is not about a blind child, I think many
parents will find something in it which
speaks to them. I did.)
Nick had Chronic lung disease and was on oxygen until he was nearly a year
old. He was rehospdtalized several
times after his first two and a half
months stay in intensive care. One
September day when he was just over a
year old, he laboriously rolled himself
to my dresser and reached up to play
with the shiny brass drawer pulL I
realized with a start that it was the
first thing he had ever done that had
reminded me of his sister Bess. Our
questions about his development didn't
begin to have answers until he was
nearly two.
During much of Nick's early life the
successes in coping with his problems
belonged to professionals. Only the
failures were mine. I hadn't had a
healthy baby, couldn't seem to get him
healthy, couldn't comfort him and, most
painful, I didn't feel connected to him.
I believed that I wasn't capable of
doing hm any good. I would like to
read a poem that I wrote about surviving
that period in our lives.
Bonding
Three years old on Tuesday,
think of it.
Two years ago I didn't know that I could
love you,
precious boy.
I look at pictures of that year,
and see your smiles,
and wonder how I could have missed them
But we were both so needy that first
year:
you for breath and growth,
I for the healthy son who would reflect
my strength,
not demonstrate my failure.
I gave you all I had that year,
but numb with fear of doing you more
harm,
I had so little.
Yesterday, looking at the pictures of
your big sister
(I think you'd never thought before
that she was once so small),
serious and funny, you turned to me and
said,
" She was little and when she was born,
she was very, very born."
No degrees of being born,
and yet for us there was a kind of
prelude.
Three years since you were born,
Two since we began
the important part.
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