An emotional day

Today is my daughter's third birthday.  She woke up early, singing "happy birthday" to herself, and when I made it into her room she was already out of bed, jumping up and down, with Mom and brother watching enraptured.  When she opened her first present, a ballet tutu, I thought she would literally vibrate into a million pieces of pure joy.  Me too. 

Today I went to the funeral of Aidan Crane, son of my friend Sam Crane.    Aidan died on March 19, fourteen and a half years old.   As Sam described his son years ago, "Aidan is severely disabled, the result of a rare combination of brain abnormalities. Now 6 years old, he is more like an infant: he cannot hold his head upright; he cannot crawl, walk or talk. The seizures that fire through his brain have proved incurable after a dozen or more medications. He is profoundly mentally retarded. We feed him through a tube that runs directly into his small intestine, to avoid aspiration pneumonia. The visual world is, for him, a dim play of shadows."   

Sam loved his son.  For fourteen and a half years, he and his wife and daughter nurtured Aidan's body and spirit.  They loved him and cared for him in ways which I can only dimly comprehend.   A daily routine of the most basic physical care developed into true communication, a true communion, a love whose depth I can fathom, as a parent,  but whose meaning I may never truly appreciate.  To say that Sam handled his son's disability with grace would be profoundly unfair:  he accepted Aidan for who he was, and allowed Aidan to change his life in ways which make him the person he is today. (you can read Sam's touching eulogy here). 

What I learned from Sam and from Aidan is to fully appreciate every moment with my children, the physical experiences, the nuance, the meaning of a slightly cocked head or the love found in a fleeting expression.    When I hold my daughter tonight for her birthday, I know that I'll cry thinking of Aidan and Sam.  Sam never had such moments with Aidan.  But he had something else.    

Today I mourn Aidan's death and revel in my daughter's life.    Both honor Aidan's spirit. 

Comments

[John K.]

Thank you for this post about Sam Crane, his son Aidan, and your own family. I was deeply moved. It sometimes is very hard to keep life, and priorities, in perspective. This was a hard reminder, just reading the post.

[Eric Martin]

Moving is the right word. Deeply so. Thanks for sharing this.