Giving Her Space

I made Ella go back to her normal chore schedule today. I’m no longer accepting “my legs are weak” or “it’s hard with crutches” as an excuse. I’ve also chewed a raw spot on the inside of my mouth in worry and anxiety.

There’s a lump in my throat that doesn’t ever seem to leave. I keep glancing away from her and slowly exhaling. I swipe the corners of my eyes and then turn a peaceful gaze back in her direction. I don’t want her to know how I ache to see her struggle. I want her to see my confidence that she will be able to find a solution, that she can make sense of what has become her life.

She dropped her school books twice on her way to the table. When she waited for someone to jump to her aid, I gently told her to pick them up. Everything inside of me screamed to help her. I ached to carry her books, to smooth this road for her. Instead I waited for her to balance herself carefully, lean over and retrieve them one at a time. She clumsily held one with her fingertips and the other with her teeth as she worked her way slowly to the table.

Putting her clothing in her drawers this afternoon was an awkward dance as she balanced on one crutch and wobbly legs. She finally sat on the floor as she sorted her clothes into their proper places, finding it easier to scoot along the floor than to try to stand. This evening, she clumsily dragged a bar stool to the kitchen counter and hauled herself up onto it in order to help me with dinner prep. Everything in me yearned to help, to do it for her, to make it easy. Instead I waited quietly for her to join me.

I have laid awake at night wondering what it will mean if this is her life. What if her legs are weak forever? How do I raise her to be a competent, confident woman who just happens to be disabled instead of a disabled woman?

I finally sent an email to a friend of a friend of mine, a sweet woman who became paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 13. I asked her how I can help and her reply was plain, “The best way that you can help is to stop helping. You teach her to be able to function by requiring her to function. Acknowledge that it’s difficult, but be firm. She has to learn to live with the body that she has instead of waiting for the one she wants to return. The greatest gift you can give her is confident independence, and that means that she needs to figure out ways to do things for herself. You have to give her the space to do that.”

This may be the way her body works for the rest of her life. We’re looking for answers and aggressively pursuing treatments, but we also need to deal with the facts in front of us. She can’t walk. There’s a possibility that that will not change.

We have reached a place in time where the best thing we can do for her is to expect her to live her life as ably as she can, and step back to give her the freedom to figure out how that will be. It will be hard. She will be clumsy and drop things along the way. There will be tears on both sides, but in the end she will find the ability to adapt to what is and not what used to be.

I know she can do it.

She has to.