Luck

Errol turned ten months old today, and we feel keenly lucky to have him. We learned at school today that Errol’s classmate, Jorge, died over the weekend. Jorge caught a simple cold which turned into RSV and then slowly killed him. I saw little Jorge every time I went to Errol’s school. He was the sweet disabled two year old who wore leg braces and worked hard at his exercises; and now he is gone. Some people get decades of life, others; next to nothing. There is no such thing as fair in this blind universe. This sad episode just goes to show us how fragile Errol’s life is and reminds us again (not that we wanted reminding) to savor every single second.

Some might think that the death of a retarded child is somehow less tragic than that of a typical kid. (I might have thought that pre-Errol). But a kid like Jorge had to really work for everything he had, and I doubt he took the good part of life for granted (perhaps he enjoyed it more than a normal kid ever could-although I’ll never know.) As I watch Errol grow and thrive and as I think about all the really horrible, horrible shit life has thrown at him and that he has overcome (go Errol!) it makes me think that his life, if anything, is more valuable than mine. Not that we should be competitive about the value of life, but I certainly don’t think that the passing of a disabled kid is somehow less dire than that of an all-American tot. I’m sure that any parent with a disabled kid has spent plenty of anxious time imagining life without their child, and if they are like me, they are acutely aware of just how hard won and precious that delicate life is.

We are thinking of little Jorge tonight and holding tightly to our beloved little Errol who, thanks to the heroics of so many, is right here with us. We are trying to embrace all that is here in this sweet and tragic moment.