An Important Lesson I Needed to Learn

This week Regan is at Texas Elks Camp in Gonzales, TX. It is the last of her disability camps that she will attend this summer, and also her own personal favorite. The reason is that this is as close to a "real camp" in her eyes as it can be. That is because there is teen angst and drama, there are cute boys and dances, and no one cares a bit about what your disability is.

This particular camp is unique because it takes in kids of all kinds of disabilities, from ADD and ADHD, to Down Syndrome, and pretty much everything else in between. It will not take any child who can not get around on their own (Regan uses her walker the entire week) or who needs intensive medical care.

Last year Regan came home filled with tales of two boys that liked her, and how one asked her to the dance....then ditched her...then another guy asked her to the dance, but her friend got mad because she liked him. In Regan's world she was living the kind of life she sees on TV, or in her sister's very social world. In my mind.....I just kept obsessing over what disabilities those boys might have, and if she brought home a disabled boyfriend one day....would we be expected to help care for him too?

I know that is insane to think that way, but I just couldn't help it. I let my mind drift into all kinds of scenarios where I would be taking care of not only Regan but her entire family one day and my anxiety reached a whole new level. Finally, after my eyes had finished glazing over after all the dance details had been hashed out for the tenth time or so, I finally got brave enough to ask her.

"Honey, just what kind of disabilities to J and C have"?

"I don't know mom, it never came up".

Well that stopped me in my tracks. I don't know why I assumed that when a camp full of kids of all sorts of disabilities gets together that all they talk about is what is going on with them. I guess because that is what I would discuss with their parents....things like medications, school systems, treatment plans, other summer camps. For the kids though, it is just about camp and enjoying life. They are kids and for a week that is exactly how they are treated.

It was a good lesson for me to learn, and I needed that reminder.

Thanks Regan