Physically, Calvin carries needs that make him totally dependent for the most basic things. If someone peeked into our home, they might assume that Calvin is always on the receiving end. In many ways he is. He cannot walk. Darryl has carried him for sixteen years with great joy. He cannot see. He cannot move to scratch his head or wipe his face. He cannot speak. He can no longer breathe on his own. All of this is true. But I have never known another person quite like Calvin. Virtues that can be missed by someone passing by his chair cannot be missed when you share a life with him.

As a mother, I would like to believe that my love is unconditional and never falters for my children. It should be the baseline of a decent mother, it seems.

Up until having Calvin, it had been that way.

First Sophie, the eldest who had taught me what it meant to be a mom and was avidly taking up the mannerisms herself at age four. Then Noah, soft spoken, funny, and still sleeping with his knees curled up under him. And then Evelyn, the golden curls, exuberance, but also a colic so severe I wasn’t sure I would survive. These little people. Fascinating. Exhilarating. Stretching. They made everything else in life seem of little importance.

Then I was there, in the doctor’s office, seeing pictures of my 38-week-old son. Calvin. The grainy black and white ultrasound revealed something irrecoverably wrong, the kind that there is no going back from. It is strange to have a baby kicking into your ribs and yet see their life disappear from view.

I could not imagine what it would be like to care for a child with special needs. I sat in the bathroom feeling ready to vomit as the news uncoiled me from the inside out. There was no plausible explanation, no cause for the injury to the brain. Just resulting devastation.

What sort of life was inside of me? Kicking that had felt warm and familiar now brought new surges of fear. Promise turned to turmoil. The threat of the undoing of a life, his and ours, made me shrink back.

Fear has a feel. It moves into the recesses of life without invitation, like a parasite on your very existence. Fueled by simply breathing, it covers the imagination and burrows into the mind, attaching itself to every thought.

I could not eat, and conversation about anything else was absurd. Too restless for long prayers, I was limited to short bursts and broken phrases. What if… I tried to reason what might happen. Futile but unstoppable. My mind endlessly looped back to sitting in the doctor’s office and staring at the screen, as if a solution would come.

One night it occurred to me, “Darryl. What if he can’t walk? How…” My voice trailed off in disbelief. “I’ll carry him.” He said it simply, matter-of-fact and without hesitation.

Would I love him as unconditionally? Would his physical appearance make me withdraw? Would a mother’s love be enough?

These were uncomfortable questions. But present.

And then he was born. He was warm and familiar. Part of me. He was mine.

Fear turned to guilt, and all the reason in the world did not help. Reminders were all around me of moms who had kept their babies safe. Even the natural world accused me. The flocks of ducks running down the side of our road, even they kept their ducklings safe. If only…

How ironic that my son had been violated in the very place he was supposed to be protected. A mother’s womb is supposed to protect, not expose. I was the gatekeeper, somehow, some way. How could I live my life while he had lost his?

I fell asleep to guilt. I had nightmares of guilt. I woke to guilt. I wept buckets of guilt.

It did not seem to matter to him. He turned his head to mine. He nursed. And while my tears saturated his onesies, he nuzzled into the comfort of my arms. He held nothing against me.

I was afraid my love would falter. What I didn’t know was that his love would entirely alter me.

It is sixteen years later.

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