Acceptance of Optic Nerve Hypoplasia

There are five stages of grief. When a child is born it is suppose to be the enbodiment of dreams of a union, but when the child has multiple disabilities, similar to loosing a loved one, there is a grieving process for the child that never was was.

The five stages are:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I've been through this journey with Amanda and the most important one to me is acceptance.

I remember perfectly when it happened. When I knew that this dear sweet little person was just the way she was and her journey was going to be different from what my wife and I had envisioned from the day we decided to have a child regardless of any effort.

We had been working in the yard, her and I, cutting sod from the backyard where some construction was going to take place and moving it to the front where there is a bare spot under an oak tree. It was a spring day and she was wearing a red windbreaker and pull up blue jeans. We had cut a few pieces from the back and I was making sod buster jokes with her. Watching westerns growing up gunfighters always hated sod busters. She had a shovel and was trying to help. She weighed about 50 pounds and and the shovel was pretty uncooperative to her efforts. She didn't say much back in those days so I told her when you are digging something you have to cuss it. That is when she surprised me and I heard a little voice just say, "shit." OK, so she knew more that I thought.

That is when I taught her to say, "dag nabbit." It came out like, "da nabbit" and we had a good time with that for months to come.

Now this was almost four years ago and we were working on toilet training so she wasn't wearing a pull up. We were now in the front yard and I was on my hands an knees and she was just watching me very intently when all of the sudden her little hand grabbed my should and she got a very serious look on her face and then pooped her pants.

Up to this point Amanda had a long track record of pooping her pants. It used to just get on my last nerve, but this day that nerve wasn't even hooked up. I just looked at her and said, "Well of course you did." Scooped her up and took her inside and cleaned her up and then went right back to work.

We sit out under that same tree on most warm days and visit. She pretends to be on one of my old Blackberries and I enjoy a cool beverage and let Tina stay inside and take care of whatever she needs to do.

I'll be writing about the other four stages in the near future, but I had to get this most important one out first.