May’s Window
Craig Reger
Copyright 2011 by Craig Reger
Smashwords Edition
Editors: Judith Skretny, William Reger
Table of Contents
Lightening Crashes
A Broken Window
The Move
Moms know best
Chaos
Coming Home
Fitting In
Family, Religion and Faith
Going Away
Preface
Looking out this window day after day with my mother at my side makes me feel lucky that I have a mother so warm and caring; I wish I could whisper to her as much.
Not every child is supposed to be born. The naturally selective process determines that the strongest survive. I was supposed to be born because I am here. Birthing is the first earthly right of passage in a selective process that has been in place for (b) millions of years. I will pass on to infinity when I am no longer strong enough like every other living breathing animal. Since I am here I feel obliged to tell you why I am here and what “here” is from the perspective of my societal sub-culture. May’s Window is my attempt to pass on an assimilated form of myself, in a book if you will, because self-perpetuation is not possible for me.
My parents were not aware of my genetic deficiencies in utero. Mom was asked once would she have terminated her pregnancy if she knew. Some would call that murder and some would call it sympathy. I refer to it as the most humane decision a parent can make.
I am not “writing” this book out of self-pity I am “writing” for the sake of “writing”. It is cathartic, energizing, and necessary for me. Pity should be saved for the mirthless and others who do not take advantage of the fact that it is a wonder we are even here.
Being classified as a retard, idiot, dumb, haphazard, or delayed is not hurtful to me. I am quite ambivalent towards the stigma of my being. Those are classifications based on my lack of response to invoked stimuli. It doesn’t mean I am not stimulated, it means my response is muted.
Thank you to my father for helping me with the typing. My mother’s strength of will is un-fleeting and it makes this book possible. Everybody in my family plays a role in the window to the world for me, Olivia May Reger, otherwise known as “Little May”.
Lightning Crashes
Chapter 1
Hi, my name is Olivia May. I was born with a genetic defect which has affected my ability to talk, walk, and communicate verbally throughout my adventures of life. My conceptual shortcomings have allowed me the paradoxical benefit of absorbing a unique perspective on life that I observe from a rather quiet, supine, and undisturbed observational angle.
My anticipation of a shorter life span (something less than 67.2 years) has been a wonderful tool to help me aggregate my daily energy for respectable mental and physical utility. Disregarding medical advances I suspect my chances for leading a productive life are equivalent to the following:
Imagine for a moment you are a child and have been inadvertently left behind in the forest during a family camping trip. You have no use of your arms and legs, and blurred vision grants paralyzing fear to your disconsolate thoughts of accidental abandonment. Your family silently waits for news about your safe return from weary volunteer search crews. Some family members silently pray to God for a miracle. A calloused news team interviews your mother as she pleads for your safe return over the airwaves. The story can end in only one way. An angry thunder storm halts the search crew efforts as lightening crashes and an old giant oak tree succumbs to the heavy wind and stinging rain. You see a giant shadow cross the moonlit sky at the last moment. Your life ends before living could begin. These are the odds I face in my attempt to return to the warm dancing campfire.
An evening sky through my bedroom window reminds me of a dancing campfire as I watch stars self-immolate throughout the night. Green grass is comfortable for me because I know I cannot fall any further when I am lying in the soft warm grass. A blue sky leaves me in a transcendental state of wonderment. After a summer afternoon in my backyard I am left to wonder how I even got here and what my meaning for being here is. Supposing there is tangible meaning to any of us being here on planet earth.
My life has tangible meaning to my family and should add up to something but not in what I have at the end, because it won’t be much, but what I gave throughout my life to my family by way of small unspoken gifts. This book, my smile, my easy nature, my willingness to compromise, and my desire to sleep in on weekends to give mom a break are other small gifts.
My greatest desire is self-expression, other than living, I suppose. Life is a wonderful party if invited. I am not a VIP so I wait my turn behind the velvet ropes. I have found it easier to decipher lethargic strangers and their transparent desires than expose my well-hidden aspirations.
At a daily minimum I aspire to an illusory happiness. If that illusion keeps my sanity, then I will hold onto that illusion as conciliatory happiness for what could have been for me. My potential may have been reached in life, and it is not because I have set the bar low for my goals.
Out of the millions of people who could have been me it turned out to be me. If it wasn’t me I will always be curious if it would have still been me. There certainly could have been better more worthwhile productive Olivias (just not as pretty) but that is how natural selection works. If a certain other DNA were selected, this book might not be here.
God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform (English poet, William Cowper). Possibly God put me here to write this book. Is this a lesser book than what I could have co-written with Dad had I been born healthy? I will try and find the right time in my life to ask for an apology from a not so humble God on his performance (or lack thereof) in creating me. It is not required of my humble lost soul to accept god’s apology. I tolerate my deprecated physical contraction and social stigma with the knowledge that God’s intervention to assist would be unimpeded by me.
People with my physical condition are often understood only to the limited capacity that humans can visually infer. Ah! The political incorrectness associated with stereotypes. Muslims in an airport representing religious fundamentalism, trailer parks in Central Florida representing illiterate un-educated country people, and construction companies in New Jersey representing la Cosa Nostra are all common stereotypes that society is quick to judge. I certainly don’t have the same physical and mental capacity as “normal” humans, but I do have tangible qualities of fortitude and an unbent morality that others would appreciate more if it could be tested.
I don’t have a problem with my social stature. Society has a problem with me. I am not uncomfortable in a crowd. The crowd is uncomfortable with stereotypical me. It is easy to lump me into the lowest social scale and conclude that I will be physically useless the rest of my days. It is easy to say because it is true. I fit the stereotype of a thoughtless physically challenged haphazard the same way as aforementioned stereotypes are vilified as evil, illiterate moonshiners, and/or immoral. The same way Muslims will not stop using airports I will not stop unintentionally impeding traffic at restaurants, museums, and libraries at the behest of the many more mobile members of society.
In fact, I will be a physical impediment and financial burden on my family, state, and country for the foreseeable future. I am here to write about what I can bring to the table of the good earth through my quick written wit and not my fast spoken word. If I had to choose I would much rather have quick wit than a fast tongue. I don’t consider these types of hypothetical choices very worthwhile to me, other than amusing. Hypothetically speaking, my teaching voice probably would have been drowned out by other monotone redemption seeking poets, novelists, and songwriters guilty of axioms far worse than being born a certain way.
The maxim “she has taught us so much” is overextended in our family’s case and suggests that my mother and father were a rebellious pair who were ultimately saved by my sovereign grace. I am not discounting my arrival and medical discovery as a seminal moment in their lives but my compromised genotype did highlight their tough resilient predispositions to the outside world. Their parenting does not go by the book “How to cope with a special needs child”. Justly, I would like some credit in helping to introduce a tidal wave of new information and terminology for them to process. My failure to thrive helped them gather medical wisdom like old western sagebrush rolls up dust. Sacrifice seems like a cruel means of enlightenment even according to my interrupted brain but as long as my parents learn from it and share their discoveries I am fine with this sacrifice.