When my oldest was two years old he was enrolled in an early start program for kids with special needs. I remember the first time I saw them loading him on the bus. He was in his wheelchair being raised up to the door of the bus for his ride to the school. I remember my heart sinking, the thought of my two year old on a school bus made me worried and anxious. If I didn't cry I know I was close, it was one of those moments where I worried about my child, his life and future. I worried about him going to school and the other adults in his life. Did they care for our son like we did? All of these events were overwhelming, there was something new every week, working to get a diagnosis, surgeries, and therapies. It was all just mind-blowing to me. Thank goodness for my wife or I think my head would have exploded at some point.
Our life today is far removed from when we first got the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. The first few years of his life were harder than they are now, we understand the diagnosis and what that means for his life and ours and we have hit a stride of sorts.
Life has not been all smooth or rough for that matter; it has been up and down sometimes in the same moment. The joys like when I saw him stand on his own for the first time, or the hard times of being in a hospital watching them wheel him off for surgery. I know the operation was for his good but it doesn't make the fear any less. He would not have reached that joyful moment without the other, but it didn't make that hard moment any easier.

It seems there are events that trigger some of these small moments. A friend, was at a wedding and a thought about whether or not his child would ever get to marry gave him a moment. For some, it is in that moment that they see, it is not ever going to be as they wish it could be. I believe we all have these. They bring a tear to our eye as we contemplate the future and just where our child fits into it. They are interspersed with moments of joy, seeing those first steps, or progress in an area which we have worked so hard to achieve.
These moments don't seem to be things we can control. What hits my wife is different than what hits me, though we have shared some. They can be the simplest of things that can set us off in either direction, a step, a word, the sunrise. They all contribute to our life in a powerful way. The good the bad, all of it contributes to who we are, and who are children are. We always think we want a life that looks more like a flat line instead of all of these ups and downs, but the only thing that flat lines us is death. Our hearts pump and are blood flows in the up and downs. To look back on a straight line is to not have lived.