Author: Sheila Quirke

Posted on

He Speaks, Again

This is a guest post by a friend and fellow Cancer Mom.

By Kathleen Manning

Have you ever had a déjà vu moment? You know, a moment when you have a strong feeling that an event or an experience, that you are in the midst of experiencing, has happened before. Déjà vu is French and, when translated into English, literally means “already seen.”

I recently had a profound déjà vu experience. It happened on May 8th, four days prior to Mother’s Day. I found myself in the market that day and nearly collided carts with another woman as I rounded a corner. And in proper grocery store etiquette, we apologetically nodded our heads and then waved to each other to go on ahead. As we were passing one another, she stopped me and put her hand on my left wrist. This complete stranger looked at me with a crooked smile and struggled to form her words. It seemed as though she had some type of neurological impairment. Perhaps she had had a stroke, although I couldn’t be certain. It was clear that she was just learning to speak English and looking for the right words. And then, completely out of context, she wished me a “Happy Mother‘s Day.” I was paralyzed, right there in front of the peanut better and jelly. My breath caught, goose bumps erupted on my skin, and my eyes welled with tears. I had just received a most incredible gift.

That was it, my déjà vu moment. You see, when I looked at this woman, this kind stranger with a crooked smile, I saw a 60 something year old immigrant woman. But I felt my 3 year-old son. I had a remarkably similar exchange with him on March 10 of 2010, just 4 months before his death.

My son, Aidan, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a vile malignant brain tumor, just six days before Christmas in 2009. His tumor was resected just two short days after its discovery. After surgery, Aidan was brought up to his room to recover and slept off the anesthesia most of that day. When he woke up, he was different. He had a blank stare and he didn’t speak. We were informed that one of the risks of surgeries in the area of the cerebellum was the development of something called cerebellar mutism, a symptom complex that includes decreased or absent speech, low muscle tone, unsteadiness and deceased coordination, and the inability to coordinate voluntary movements. Mutism produces a severe incoordination of the motor aspects of speech. This means that Aidan didn’t lose his language. He simply couldn’t get his mouth to work to form his words. The muscles that one uses to form their words also happen to be the same muscles that one uses to eat and the same muscles one uses for facial expressions, such as smiling. At the time, we were told that the mutism may last for as little as six days or as long as 52 months.

It was during the first week of March in 2010 when we noticed that Aidan was starting to regain some use of his mouth and facial muscles. He was slowly learning to eat and make some sounds again. We were blessed to hear his sweet giggle that week, music to our ears. And he was beginning to smile again, although he had poor control over those facial muscles. His smile would often be crooked.

I kept a blog during my son’s illness. It provided the framework for what would become Aidan’s Cancer Story, written in 2012 to recognize pediatric cancer awareness month. The following is an excerpt from the 15th entry in Aidan’s Cancer Story titled, “He Speaks”:

It was on March 10, 2010, Aidan’s 82nd day at Children’s Memorial Hospital, when we finally heard him speak. It was Aidan’s first spoken word since December 21, 2009. I was sitting next to him, in his hospital bed. We were in the middle of reading a story. He stopped me and gently put his hand on my left wrist. He then looked up at me with his crooked smile as he struggled to form his words. And in the tiniest raspy voice he said, “Mom.”

This is Aidan. He loved dinosaurs and trains and Buzz Lightyear. He had exceptional taste in music at such a tender age. Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” was a favorite to dance to. Photo October 2009
This is Aidan. He loved dinosaurs and trains and Buzz Lightyear. He had exceptional taste in music at such a tender age. Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” was a favorite to dance to. Photo October 2009

Aidan, keep speaking. I am listening.

Kathleen Manning is the co-founder and director of Aidan’s Army, a Chicago area non-profit that seeks to raise funds to support pediatric brain tumor research.

Posted on

Hinsdale High School Cowers in the Face of an AK-47 (T-Shirt)

If you’re local to Chicago, you might have been following the story of a suburban boy who was suspended last week from Hinsdale Central High School for wearing a t-shirt with an image of an AK-47 on it.  As reported by Annemarie Mannion in the Chicago Tribune, the student in question wore the t-shirt pictured below and was stopped by hall monitors because of its provocative nature.

Photo from the Chicago Tribune used with permission.
Photo from the Chicago Tribune used with permission.

The dean of students then gave him three options:  1) remove the t-shirt; 2) turn the t-shirt inside out; or 3) go home for the day and be marked with a suspension.  The boy opted for the third option and was sent home.

Today, the boy appealed his suspension to the Hinsdale School Board, arguing his first amendment rights were violated.  The Board then reversed the dean’s original suspension and it will be removed from the boy’s PERMANENT RECORD.  You all remember the threat of something landing on your PERMANENT RECORD, right?

So much of this story disturbs me, I don’t quite know where to start, but let’s do this.

  • Guns have no place in our schools.  I don’t know what else to say about this.  Guns and schools do not mix.  End of story.
  • First amendment, schmirst schmendment.  This kid went in front of the School Board to assert that his first amendment rights were being violated.  “I decided to go home for the day because I felt it was a infringement of my First Amendment right to freedom of expression,” he told the board.  What, exactly, was this student attempting to express by wearing the inflammatory image of an AK-47 on his t-shirt?  The AK-47 is an assault rifle, an Avtomat Kalashnikova, first manufactured in World War II Russia for the sole purpose of killing in a military combat setting.  Not hunting.  Not providing food for family.  Not for sport.  Solely for killing human beings in a more efficient manner.  Do you know how many results will be found if you Google “school shootings with AK-47”?  1,650,000.  If this student could articulate what exactly he was attempting to express, not whine that his rights were being violated, I would want to hear it, but I am fairly certain I would strongly disagree with any POV that advocates for personal use of an AK-47.
  • Discipline must be consistent.  Hinsdale Central’s school dean is who first meted out the suspension on the grounds that the provocative t-shirt, and yes, the image of an assault rifle is provocative, most especially in a school setting, violated the school’s dress code policy.  Per the Tribune, “The handbook states that students are subject to disciplinary action when they wear clothing that ‘is deemed vulgar, inappropriate, unsafe or disruptive to the educational process (e.g., advertising/display of alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sexual innuendo).'”  The dean determined that an AK-47 depicted on a t-shirt in the school environment was indeed inappropriate and disruptive, correctly, I believe.  The school superintendent originally agreed with the dean’s actions, stating that schools maintain the right to prevent school children from wearing offensive clothing.  Today, the board reversed the suspension.  Kid wins.  Hooray for AK-47s being glamorized in schools everywhere!  Parenting 101 mandates that when a punishment is handed out, a punishment is handed out.  The best and easiest way to create chaos for children is to provide inconsistency in their parenting and discipline.  If an assault rifle on a t-shirt is found to be disruptive to the educational process, then it is disruptive to the educational process.  My writing this blog post is evidence of that — it is front page news in Chicago.  Send a message to our children that discipline is discipline.  Be consistent.  Stand by your dean and common sense.
  • Guns have no place in our schools.  Again, this is self-explanatory.
  • Stop confusing the issue of guns.  After reversing their decision to suspend the boy, the superintendent today said that school personnel will, moving forward, attempt to distinguish between lawful images of guns that do not promote violence and other images that do promote violence.  Huh.  Last I checked, all guns promoted violence.  I mean, that’s kind of the whole point, right?  Guns are made to harm and/or kill.  All guns.  It just is the nature of the beast, no getting around it.  What the Hinsdale School Board did with their reversal today was confuse a pretty straight forward issue — guns have no place in our schools.  By opening the door to this idea of gun clubs being harmless entities when those same clubs use the deadly image of an AK-47 with the lingo, “Team AK,” well, they are sending an extremely confusing message to their student body and loads of headaches for their staff.
  • Guns have no place in our schools.  

I make no bones about where I stand on the gun issue.  In our beloved Constitution of these United States of America, the Second Amendment guarantees the right of its citizens to bear arms.  I get it, I will not argue with that, own a gun, as it is your right.  But times have changed, folks, and we have become a gun loving society that embraces its guns beyond any stretch of common sense.

This child, an 18 year old Eagle Scout for cripes sake, believes he has the right to express himself in a school environment by wearing the image of a deadly weapon used expressly for the purposes of killing human beings more efficiently. What he is trying to express is beyond my peace loving comprehension, I know, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why the Hinsdale School Board would kowtow to the feeble arguments about expression when children across America are being gunned down in classrooms.

It is simple, Hinsdale School Board.  Set an example.  Structure a school environment that does not tolerate the glamorization or romanticization of guns in any instance.  Be consistent with the message.  Educate instead of placate.  Guns have no place in our schools.  Period.  Class dismissed.

Click here for a list of schools shootings in America from 1764-today.  

Posted on

Honoring Birth Mothers on Mother’s Day

A few months ago, in a glorious daze of caring for our littlest child — a newly adopted baby boy — an article I wrote was published in Chicago Parent magazine.  You can read it here.  I called it “Invisible Pregnancy,” but that title was changed by the magazine.  The article focused on the few months between when we were contacted by an expectant mother who wanted to talk with us about adoption and when the adoption actually took place, two days after our son’s birth.

It was written just a few weeks after bringing our baby home, but even now I cringe a little when I re-read my words.

I’ve only been an adoptive mom for eight months now, but I have already learned some things.  In the article, I refer to our son’s Birth Mother as “our” Birth Mother.  Well, that’s just not accurate.  She is not our Birth Mother, she is our son’s Birth Mother.  It might seem like semantics or a small distinction, but it is not.

And many people in the adoption community refer to the “gift” that Birth Mothers make to adoptive families — the gift of a child that would not be possible for them, most often because of infertility.  While my husband and I struggled with secondary infertility, I have never thought of our son as a gift bestowed upon us.  Never, not once.

Instead, my husband and I entered into a pact, a sacred pact, a pact that for me is more sacred than marriage (which has, for better or worse, the out of divorce available) with our son’s Birth Mother.  We agreed, with love and gratitude and trust and hope, to care for her child for all of his days as our child.  To love him, to feed him, to clothe him, to keep him safe, to educate him, to nurture him, to watch him fall and help pick him up, to tell him the story of how he came to us, to let him know that he is loved by another mother.

Our son has two mothers.

On Mother’s Day, I will be the mom who gets to hold him and smile at him and tickle him under his chins just so, until his belly erupts in laughter.  There will be pancakes and flowers and love and joy and probably a homemade card or two.  (And, for me, a heaping dose of sadness, too, as one of the days that Donna’s absence hits hardest is the mid-May ode to motherhood.)

My baby’s other mother, the one who conceived him, grew him, cared for him enough to bring him into this world, will not be with us in any way other than Skype and spirit.  She will be clear across the country.  This breaks my heart to this day, as I am certain it does hers.  I know, more than most, the pain of not being with your child on Mother’s Day.  It is a cruel, bitter pill.

Mother’s Day is hard for many of us, for many reasons.  It saddens me deeply to know that a person I so respect and admire, our son’s amazing Birth Mother, feels the deep pain of a Mother’s Day without her child.  And yet, this too is adoption.  It is not all joyful gifts freely given and happily ever after.

The bravery of Birth Mothers astounds me.  The heart and courage that is required to place your child, your loved child, in the arms of another, precisely because of the love you hold for that child is wrenching and affirming all at once.

I shake my head, because after the death of my mother and my daughter, I never thought Mother’s Day could get more complicated.  I was wrong. Mother’s Day has gotten more complicated.  For the rest of my Mother’s Days I will hold three so close to me — my mother, my daughter, and my son’s Birth Mother.

I see you.  You are not invisible to me, though others may not know you are also the mother to my son.  He will know and he will see you, too.  He will always know that he has two mothers who love him deeply.  Not one, but two, and that two includes you.

Happy Mother’s Day to all Birth Mothers.  

If you like my words and want to read more of them, please subscribe!  Here is how:  

Type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.