A second chance

I think one of the most soul destroying days of my life was the Dancing Queen's first day of school. I had co-enrolled her to do two days in the mainstream school that her elder sibling attended and three days in a special education development unit.  At the end of that very first day at mainstream school I was taken aside by the teacher and asked why she was not able to attend the second school full time (a question I was repeatedly and very pointedly asked on a number of occasions in those first few weeks).  She had not even given a 5 year old child a chance. She could not see past the label and promptly sought to wash her hands of her.  The same teacher was also responsible for one of the worst insults I have been given as a mother; that she had 24 students in her class and then my child. At the time I was outraged, believing that my child was not being given the same chances as her peers.

However I soon learnt that fate plays strange hands.  At the SEDU, my daughter for the first time ever was not left in the corner to her own devices or simply filed in the too hard basket.  She found her feet and as it also happens her voice.  They gave her a chance there and she seized it.  The tears slowly abated and as they did, so did the separation anxiety to a significant degree.  By the end of six months, I could almost leave a smiling child which after three years of walking away to the deafening sounds of a flailing child being held down while she sobbed her heart out was a major achievement on both hers and their parts.

The other thing about chance that recently struck me was the second chance she has given me to view life from an entirely different angle.  The sheer and absolute delight with which she now sees the world never ceases to amaze me.  She has opened my eyes to so many things I was previously blind to.  Plus she has this amazing ability to open doors I had previously assumed were firmly shut as well as the hearts of people I would have erroneously assumed to be closed. So to everyone that sees past my daughter's idiosyncrasies and gives her that chance I thank you.  And I thank my dancing queen for also giving me that second chance.