Why you shouldn’t check your phone at stoplights…

I was driving home from a friend’s house today, and truth be told, I was telling pretty sorry for myself.  I’ve really been stuck on this sadness over the realization that I can’t protect my family from the world’s misconceptions of disability. No matter now great our family and friends are, there is still a world of people out there who will not see LP as a human being, rather a package of difference judged as less than. And that makes me sad.  Not angry.  After all, I harbored most of those misconceptions before we realized LP has Down Syndrome.  I just wasn’t fortunate to have had much contact with people having disabilities.  (As a side note, the term “disabilities” bugs me.  Like there really is a definable class of people with disabilities.  We all have disabilities.  Some are just better at hiding theirs.)

There I am, feeling sorry for myself, waiting for the light to turn green, and I heard my phone ding. Text message. Please don’t judge me here, I know it is terrible, but yes, I looked at it. Had no intention of answering it, just looked while the light was still red. It was from Latke.

I called the SPCA. Bonnie got adopted on LP’s birthday.

OK, you need some back story. Ever since Chipmunk was born (maybe even before that) I’ve become increasingly allergic to cats. We had a cat, named Bonnie. She was awesome.  We tried everything, and eventually poor little Bonnie had been banished to our basement. It is a nice basement, but still. No more sunny windows, no more lap cuddles. And I was still allergic the minute I walked into the house. I mean can’t-get-up-from-the-couch-can barely-see-through-my-itchy-eyes kind of allergic. After months and months of this, and last fall we finally made the painful decision to take Bonnie back to the SPCA where we had originally adopted her. I was pretty torn up about it, and for a while kept checking to see if she had found a new family, but after a while the guilt was too much and I didn’t check very often.  After that I just spent my time trying to quell the guilt by not talking about it.

Back to now. There I am sitting at the intersection, and of course, I burst out into tears. I had to pull over and have a good cry, while Chipmunk sat in the back seat asking, “Mommy sad? Want snack?  Booberries?”

Honestly I can’t believe it. What are the chances that our little cat would wait all those months and be taken home to a new family the day LP was born??? If our lives were a novel this would have some serious metaphoric meaning but sadly, my mommy brain just can’t come up with it.  I’m not religious, but I do wonder if the universe did some shuffling that week so everyone ended up in the home meant for them.  The cry I had was bittersweet. I’m still sad that we had to give Bonnie up, but more than thankful she found a new home. After feeling sorry for myself, it was like the universe was telling me everything is going to be fine, relax.

So the moral of the story is, don’t check your phone at intersections.  You never know, it might make you cry, and then you will have to pull over.

Hope you’re doing ok out there, Bonnie.  We miss you.