This morning, on our way to Dean’s classroom superhero breakfast party, one of the other mothers stopped me.
“Is this Dean?!” she asked. I nodded, a little apprehensive of what might be coming next.
“Our son is Ben… He broke his clavicle a few weeks ago and isn’t able to play at recess. Ben has been telling us that most days Dean skips recess and reads with him in the nurse’s office so that he doesn’t have to be alone.” Thank goodness for my sunglasses; I could hide behind them as I wept joyously walking past the playground.
We settled in to breakfast at Dean’s desk and met the little girl that sits across from Dean. At one point, Alice’s father leans over and quietly asks if he can tell me a story about my son.
“One day Alice was telling us about her day at school. She said that she was playing with a couple of little boys and one boy said to the other, ‘I don’t like you! You can’t play with us!’ The second little boy started crying. Alice says Dean walked over from the reading nook, and gave him a hug.” He finishes his story with tears in his eyes, “I just thought you should know.”
Every day I ask Dean what he did at school, and he has never once shared a story like this. The things I hear about at the end of a long day are: “The teacher moved my desk because I play with Josh too much”, “Emma took the marker I was using”, “I fell on the playground”. When he tells me about his day, all I think about is what he is doing wrong, what I am doing wrong as a parent, or what I can do to correct bad behavior.
Today was a touching lesson that there are a million other stories that I will never hear. A beautiful reminder that although I am responsible for this child, he is a completely separate human being; he has his own thoughts and experiences. While most of our family life is filled with timelines, homework, rules, practices, and routines; everyday there are so many moments filled with kindness, compassion, love, and support. You might not always see them, but they are there nonetheless.
Silly to think about it… Dean dressed up as Spiderman today. We pretend to be Ironman and Captain America when we play. But to me? Dean is the true hero.
