Sixteen

Kellen will turn sixteen years old next week. I have been thinking about this "milestone" birthday for several years. I had a feeling, even long ago, that sixteen would be a hard birthday for me and I was right. Even though I've known all along that driving a car would most likely be out of the realm of possibility for Kellen based on his abilities and challenges, it is still hard to know that he will turn sixteen on Monday and there will be no driver's ed, no taking the car for a spin around the block with mom and her sweaty palms in the passenger seat and most of all, no nervous trip to the DMV to take the test for the shiny new driver's license. I feel like bawling every time I think about it. I feel like I'm grieving all over again.

I still remember a flippant remark the on-call cardiac surgeon made when Kellen was a baby. He was six months old and recovering well after his open-heart surgery. He had the surgery on a Monday and by Friday he was pretty much operating "unplugged" (meaning he wasn't hooked up to anything other than an occasional oximeter to measure his oxygen saturation). I had taken him out of his tiny hospital gown and dressed him in "real clothes". A colorful, bright, striped, cotton outfit. I was crossing my fingers that the surgeon would tell us we could be discharged that day.

Instead we were to stay until Monday. When the young surgeon came in for his rounds that Friday he said to my son, "Look at you, all dressed up and no where to go!"

I know to him it was just a funny, casual remark, and I'm sure he had no idea that it cut me to the core. I was a hypersensitive, new parent and I wanted my son home with me as soon as possible. I was tired of the intrusions of the hospital where there is hardly any day and night and certainly no weekend. I didn't want his life to be lived in some protected, artificial environment watching the rest of the world go by. I still don't want that.

I wonder if I'm feeling that on Monday, when Kellen turns sixteen, he will once again be "all dressed up with no where to go"? He will be sixteen, but he won't have what other sixteen year olds have. Maybe that is where my sadness comes in.