When I became pregnant and had no control over the physical hurdles, big or small, that came my way, I’d harbored hope that the limitations introduced during pregnancy wouldn’t last after Luke was born; but I could see that they had. I was almost back to square one in terms of the speed at which I could move through the world. And as he started exploring his independence, I realized that my limitations could put Luke in danger. My fears started small but grew as he grew.
With a toddler, the risks I took note of were not like my risk-taking of yesteryear. They were subtle and profound. Instead of jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on my back, I learned to open my heart to the sadness I felt when I had to say, “No, honey, Mommy can’t run with you. You run ahead, and I’ll watch.” And now the risks in my life had higher stakes because I was not the vulnerable one. Luke was.
I simply couldn’t run after him. And if there is one thing the mother of a toddler needs to be able to do, it is to give chase.
When Luke first started walking, Mark and I took him to the beach on a warm September day. Mark held Luke in his arms as we made our way over the grass and down to the water. I wanted to carry him, but I didn’t feel comfortable. I was afraid I would trip on the uneven ground and hurt him, unable to shield him from the fall and catch myself at the same time. The minute Luke saw the waves lapping at the shoreline, he wriggled out of Mark’s arms and waddled as fast as his plump little legs could carry him. Mark and I were next to him as he walked over the dewy grass and onto the rocky beach. He masterfully navigated his way over the small rocks, all the way down to the water. I marveled at how his young brain and body could adapt so quickly to this terrain, while I struggled to maneuver over the pebbles.
Mark and I lingered a few steps behind as we laughed at how adorable he was as he toddled along. When Luke arrived at the water’s edge, he didn’t stop; he kept walking, unaware, toward the waves. “Luke, stop!” I half shouted, half laughed as Mark hurried over to scoop him up. Luke tried to wriggle out of Mark’s arms, frustrated he couldn’t grab a shiny rock he had his eye on. “Oh my God, he was going to walk right in the water, wasn’t he?” I was shocked.
“I guess he was. Wow.” Mark was as perplexed as I was. As new parents, we were discovering that children are not born with the instinct for self-preservation. Teaching that skill is the job of the parents. I found this simultaneously interesting and terrifying. If I had to teach my son the most basic common-sense rules, what happened if I forgot or neglected to teach him something before he encountered that situation? What if I failed? And what if Mark hadn’t been there in that moment on the beach? Could I have reached him in time, before a crashing wave swamped him?
Reality hit home. And fear flooded in. How was I going to mother this precious soul if I couldn’t keep up with him? An awesome terror filled my heart. How could I be all he needed me to be with only one leg? Slow. Limping. Often tired. I would try, but what if that wasn’t enough?
I had to face the very real possibility that I might not be enough for the first time on a cold Tuesday just after the older children in our neighborhood had returned to school in early September. Luke was two and a half.
We had learned that he loved walking around the neighborhood searching for rocks and pebbles. A walk down the block could take fifteen minutes, so enamored was he with each stone he found. He’d pick it up with his chubby hand, eyes glistening, and hold the rock in the air, bursting with excitement. “Look, Mommy!” he’d squeal, as if it were the first rock ever discovered.
When we came to a crosswalk, I’d grab his hand in a vice grip and teach him how to look for cars. “Look right,” I’d say in a singsongy voice that ended on a high note as I dramatically turned my head to the right. “Look left,” I’d continue, with my singsongy voice now ending on a low note as I comically turned my head to the left. If I could teach my son anything, it would be to protect himself from getting hit by a car. Never a car. Our neighborhood didn’t have a lot of traffic, but one could never be too careful.
This Tuesday while we were walking, as my mind wandered to my mental to-do list, Luke tired of the rocks. He spotted something across the street and down the block. Before I knew what was happening, he ran off the sidewalk, into the middle of the street, his plump arm extended, his index finger pointing. “Look, Mommy!” Giggles issued forth as he ran right down the middle of the road!
Fear gripped me as if a rabid dog was attacking my heart. He was so fast, and he was out of reach before I knew it. “Luke! Stop!” I screamed. Luke didn’t stop. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Luke kept running and laughing. Didn’t he understand I couldn’t run after him? Didn’t he know what a car could do to him? He wasn’t running across the street where he might reach safety on the other side; he kept running down the middle of the street.
As I hop-skipped after Luke, my best version of running, my eyes darted up and down the road. A car was a block away, coming toward us. “Luke! Stop!” I screamed, with high-pitched terror in my voice. Luke kept running down the street. I willed my body to go faster, right leg skipping, left leg following with a long hop. I had to reach out and grab him, but he was too fast for me, and too far away. He was now twenty-five feet in front of me, the farthest he’d ever been away from me alone in my presence. I was absolutely certain the car was going to hit him. I could see the whole scenario unfolding in my imagination, and my body contracted with the memory of the pain I’d experienced in my own accident. In my mind’s eye, I watched my son die. My insides contorted at the thought; heat infused my body. The metallic taste in my saliva returned: the taste of trauma and loss.
I put my hand up in a “stop” position as I hop-skipped after Luke. The car didn’t stop. I realized the person in the car probably couldn’t see me, since they were still a block away. Luke was still running in the middle of the street, laughing as he turned his head to see if I was catching up with him. No, don’t look behind you—keep looking ahead so you don’t trip! He neared the edge of the street and then inexplicably slowed down. I finally made headway and caught up to him, trembling with panic and adrenaline. I scooped him up into my arms and pressed him to me.
“Ow, Mommy, hurts.”
“I’m sorry, buddy,” I heaved, half sobbing. I nuzzled my face into his neck and took a long whiff of him: baby skin and sunshine, warm earth and Cheerios. “Luke,” I said firmly, “don’t ever run into the street. That’s dangerous. We walk … we walk on the sidewalks. Do you understand me?” He was only two and a half, but I wanted to will him to understand how important this was. And yet I didn’t want to scare him—didn’t want him to have the same taste of iron in his mouth that I had in mine.
Luke squirmed his way out of my arms, slid down my torso, and reached the ground. He turned around and showed me what he was running after: a broken piece of a red Mylar balloon caught in a bush. My son almost died for a broken balloon.
The counseling I’d done before Mark and I became involved helped me deal with many of my fears, but nothing had prepared me for the terror of watching my son run down the center of the street. There I was on the sidewalk with Luke, catching my breath, resisting the internal trembling, and wiping the tears from my check before Luke could see them.
I wasn’t bereft simply because the possibility existed that my son could disappear from my life via death by car or any other horrible disaster; I was devastated that I lived in a body that I couldn’t count on to save him.
22
FINDING MY NORMAL
Luke was two when he realized his mommy was different than other mommies. One day after a shower, before I put on my leg, I sat on my big bed with Luke. He crawled over to me, and I started to tickle him. His unvarnished giggles filled the room like a chorus of singing angels. I started to move my naked stump around, curious about how he might react. Since my leg was cut off right above the knee, I have a long stump. I’d often felt that it must look creepy to other people, but Luke just rolled over and exclaimed, “Mommy baby leg.”
I wanted to help Luke understand my disability, so I hopped into his room and grabbed the doll my brother’s family gave me a few days after Luke was born. When I’d opened their gift and saw a doll with a prosthetic leg, tears welled in my eyes. I was so grateful Luke had a doll that normalized his mommy’s body. I brought her to the bed now and took off her little plastic prosthetic leg. Luke pointed to the doll’s stump and said, “Baby leg!”
“That’s right. She has a baby leg just like I do.” That’s the term I would use from now on.
Changing the name of my residual limb didn’t bring back the function I had lost, but it did invite me to think about the new definition for myself that was starting to unfold before my eyes. I am a disabled mother. I had to figure out how to function as a disabled mother. I didn’t know another amputee mother. I didn’t know any disabled mothers. Ever since I’d lost my leg, I’d dealt with my amputation for my own sake, but now it was up to me to figure out how to manage the impact of it on Luke.
As had been the case for so many years, grief would be my teacher.
I’d stopped working one year after Luke was born and, after many months of spending my days solely with Luke, loneliness crept up on me. So just before Luke had his second birthday, I found a Mommy and Me toddler group for us to join, hoping we could both make some new friends.
Our first day of Mommy and Me was a warm September morning. I packed Luke up and drove to the playground, anxious about joining a group of women who already knew one another, but determined to widen our lives outside of our small home. On the north end of the playground was a building that functioned as a community center and was used for meetings and other gatherings. I made my way to the entrance and checked in with Lucy, the group facilitator who I’d talked to on the phone the previous week. I shuffled farther into the room, a wide-open space filled with children’s play things, and stood on the sidelines of the group of ten women, who were all chatting with one another. One woman finally opened the circle to me just a bit, and I tried to find a way into the conversation. Luke tentatively joined some boys who were playing with big blocks and quietly looked at them with the same uncertainty I felt.
At ten sharp Lucy rang a bell and announced in a singsongy voice, “It’s Circle Time, boys and girls. Come to the rug, please.” All the other moms found their children and scampered to a round colorful rug in the middle of the room and sat around the edges, echoing its shape. Oh great, I internally moaned, I have to sit on the floor.
There is always a moment in every group when my prosthetic leg gives itself away. Sitting on the floor would accomplish this for sure. Regardless of how relaxed the rest of my body is, my prosthetic leg sticks straight out like a rifle. Made of plastic and wood, the foot stays at a ninety-degree angle, even when my body is in repose. Whereas most moms sat “crisscross applesauce” with their child tucked neatly in their lap, I sat down with my left leg sticking out into the middle of the circle, and bent my other leg at the knee.
It was always hard for Luke to get comfortable in my lap when I sat on the floor. Because my prosthetic leg reached all the way to my hip, half of his “seat” was as hard as a rock. He settled in the best he could and gave me a smile. I noticed some of the other moms look curiously from the corners of their eyes and then quickly look away. A few children noticed the metal at my ankle sticking out the end of my pants, too, but without the reserve of the adults. One mom noticed her child was staring and tried to casually redirect her child’s attention. I shifted a bit to get comfortable and avoided catching the eye of anyone around the room.
Lucy, who looked to be in her fifties and who oozed warmth and comfort, welcomed us all to the group. “And we’d like to welcome new members Colleen and Luke into the group today. Thank you for coming.” The other moms around the circle nodded their welcomes.
Lucy led us in singing a child’s song about an elephant stomping around in the clover. The moms, smiles spread across their faces, sang along enthusiastically, looking at their children with raised eyebrows, an invitation to sing along. The children started singing, some quietly, others with equal enthusiasm. The tune was catchy and the words repetitive, so I tentatively sang along. Luke was more reticent and stuck to observing.
We sang about five more songs that first day, many which required hand gestures. I felt silly and self-conscious and marveled at the other moms’ unabashed participation. After song time, while Lucy and a few moms fixed a light snack, the rest of us followed the children outside to the play area. This was our chance to mingle and chat informally.
Over the course of the next month, women began approaching me more, and I them. We easily chatted about the ups and downs of mothering our toddlers. Some of the women had older children, and I tucked away their tips about the inevitable phases Luke would be entering.
Though I could talk about general parenting issues, I couldn’t talk to the other moms about how disabled I felt, about the loss of function I’d endured over the last few years. Experience had taught me people didn’t want to hear about the downside to being an amputee. Over the years, most new people in my life seemed to want only to see me mount the odds or, at the very least, look and act normal. So I tried to act normal with my new acquaintances, even though I didn’t feel it. I felt protective of my story, of my true self. I lived in secret terror that others would discover how truly disabled I was and think I shouldn’t have become a parent in the first place, so I dropped references about having skied, backpacked, or kayaked to prove I could be active.
While I could compare to any other mom on an emotional and intellectual level, on the playground my physical limitations became more pronounced. I couldn’t run around with Luke. I watched wistfully as other moms played a game of chase with their children. My heart broke every time I thought about how I couldn’t share the joy of running with my little boy. Even wrestling with him was a challenge because my prosthetic leg could hurt him.
Luke had already distinguished himself as an “observer” in life. He didn’t sing the circle songs until he had watched and learned them first. He looked at how the other boys adeptly ran around on the jungle gym before climbing, so I knew he was aware, on some level, of my difference, but he never indicated it bothered him. He treated me the same way all the other toddlers treated their moms: clinging when he was scared or tentative, and running away to play when he felt safe.
On the second visit to the Mommy and Me playgroup, when it was time to go outside and watch the kids swarm the play structure, I watched as Luke climbed and scrambled and I found it impossible to have a casual conversation with the mom standing next to me. I couldn’t focus on what she was saying. Fear for Luke’s safety gripped my heart. My pulse quickened and my breath started to come in shallow bursts. I excused myself from the other woman and sidled up to Luke just to be near him. I dubbed myself his “spotter.”
As he grabbed hold of the rung above him on the climbing cage, my sweat glands began working overtime. I quickly grew wet around my neck and under my arms. Why weren’t the other mothers over here with me spotting their children? Everyone needed a spotter, didn’t they? Especially if you were going to hang from a high bar or swing wildly across monkey bars that were just barely in reach? Especially if you were going to climb on top of the tube covering the slide?
By the time Luke and I got into the car to go home, I felt worn and old, like I could go to bed and sleep for a million years. After I got Luke in his car seat, I sat behind the wheel for a few moments and put my hand on my heart. I could feel it pounding. I’d intended to go to the grocery store when we left playgroup, but I was done for the day.
Each week required a true force of commitment in order for me to return and keep vigil over the playground. Each week I stood in front of the mirror at home before leaving f
or Mommy and Me and saw how I was not like the other moms. None of them talked about the fear I felt. I did not see terror in their eyes that I suspected they must see in mine.
One day, after we’d been attending the group for about two months, I was standing near the tube slide with a few of the moms when I saw a group of children gathered at the bottom, gently pushing one another to get to the opening. They were too little to see that at the top of the slide there was another group of children, Luke included, vying to be the next one to go down the slide.
One woman was talking about using time-outs to teach kids patience. “So I was reading an article in Mothering magazine about …” I couldn’t listen. Panic was rising in my chest as I imagined a child at the bottom of the slide getting a face full of shoes when the next child slid down. I quickly scurried over to monitor the slide activity.
“Hey, kids,” I said as I corralled the children at the bottom of the slide away from the opening “Why don’t you go up to the top and slide down. We slide down the slide.”
“No, I want to climb up and then slide down,” one of the girls said excitedly.
“But there are other kids at the top already coming down, so you could get hurt,” I tried to explain. I looked over to the group of moms engrossed in their conversation. They continued talking, unconcerned. Was I overreacting? I looked down momentarily and saw that my hands were trembling. I had to get the children to move. I decided I’d try to entice them up the stairs to the top of the slide with a contest. “Hey, look at this dinosaur head up here. Who can touch it first?” That did it; they all scampered up the stairs, vying to be the first, and my chest opened up again.
I just couldn’t stand how fraught this playground was with danger.
A Leg to Stand On Page 18
