Blindsided. That's how it felt sitting at the long conference table with everyone seated away from me. I joked unknowingly before the meeting began about feeling ganged up on with me on one side, alone, and all seven other people on the opposite side of the table. I started to wonder when they all chuckled nervously in response. It felt a little like a police interview. "Where were you on the night of ...?" They told me I was there for a follow-up to a meeting we just had a month ago. Something about testing that my son wasn't going to need in the future of his program, even though I said several times we had already discussed this and it was in the notes. Oh no, they said, it just needed to be documented formally. No big deal. That's not how it was beginning to feel all alone on my side of the table. Blindsided is how it was beginning to feel. I was starting to wonder if I even wanted a seat at the table.
I didn't see it coming. While none of it felt right (You know, that sixth sense that this isn't right?), the odd reason for the meeting, the strangers in attendance; I still didn't get it. I mean, I'd never been blindsided before. Well, there was that one other time a few of these people were here several years ago ... WHAM-O. Those same people who never come to the meetings are suddenly making decisions for the future of my son. Those people who have no idea who he is or what he loves. Or hates. These are the people on his ... team? I wanted to ask, "What was your name again?" (I looked it up on page two of the handy notes they had prepared for this meeting that wasn't any big deal.) While those of us who know him best sat quietly, blindsided. (Don't worry. I eventually found my voice. Shaky as it was. "Nobody puts Baby in a corner.") Little did I know, that 'no big deal' meeting was to become a two-hour battle to keep my son enrolled in a program in which he had every legal right to remain.
People will let us down. This fallen world will always fail us. Always. Michele Cushatt brought my attention to a man by the name of Mephibosheth. You can find him in 2 Samuel 9 in the Old Testament half of the Bible. Michele tells in her book I Am about her desire to be accepted. Many of us have this need, this craving. Mine can be overwhelming. I've been seeking this worldly acceptance for a long time in most everything I do. But when I read her story and the story of Mephibosheth I read it from disability's point of view. I read it from my Evan's point of view. You see, Mephibosheth was a man with a disability. He once had a place of honor, but no longer. He was living far from the king.
"The king said, 'Is there not still someone in the House of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?' ... 'There is a son...he is crippled in his feet.'" 2 Samuel 9:3
The king wished to restore his seat at the table, the King's table, disability or not. Just like Mephibosheth, I long for Evan to be accepted at the table. I needed him to be accepted at this long conference table at which I sat, facing those who just wanted him somewhere else.
"So Mephibosheth ... he always ate at the king's table. Now he was lame in both his feet." 2 Samuel 9:13
Acceptance at a worldly table may always be an uphill battle for those with disability. The table may be fickle. It may be accepting one day and ready for us to leave the table another. But also like Mephibosheth and the King, Evan will always have a seat at the King's table. The King is waiting for him, for us, at his.
My husband and I are parents of all boys. One of whom is a young adult with both physical and intellectual disabilities. I don't always know what I'm doing as I parent these guys. But what I do know is God is teaching me big things through our trials that I probably would have never learned without them. You can find more from me at www.mostlyeandme.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter @stefmckeever.
-- Stephanie McKeever
