Why Yesterday was My Wife's Happiest Day

Many hours after Kai's exciting race in the regional swim meet for the Illinois Special Olympics, my wife and I were still on a high. We watched the video of his gold medal winning race a couple more times last night after Kai went to bed.

My wife said that this was her best day as a mom, that this was the happiest she had felt since Kai was born.

I'm sure that many parents know the feeling of joy when their child accomplishes a goal or performs well.

But I'm guessing that only the parents of special needs kids can truly appreciate the way we felt yesterday.

For most parents, there hopefully will be many chances throughout your kids life to experience successes like the one we experienced yesterday. Your child may excel in sports or academics or the arts, and in some cases in multiple areas. Certainly you are happy with every achievement and don't take any of it for granted, but I wonder if, to some extent, most parents can count on knowing that their child will eventually find something in life that they will have success with.

But when you have a child like Kai, where even simple things are a challenge, when a good day at school is when he doesn't disrupt the class, when you wonder if he will be able to get any kind of job let alone have a successful career, then you wonder if he will ever be able to accomplish any big goals. You reset your expectations. You find joy in the little things. You take pleasure in every sign of progress, no matter how small.

For my wife, especially, I think she craved for Kai to experience success at something. And that is why she had such a big desire for Kai to do well in the Special Olympics. He is a good swimmer. And if he could win gold, then maybe he will have higher self-esteem. Maybe he will have more confidence to take risks to pursue his dreams.

And I think his come-from-behind victory did that.

And yes, there's a bit of a selfish element, too, if you can call it that. While we love the achievements of the kids of our friends and relatives, it is a nice feeling to know that Kai's grandparents can brag a little bit about his accomplishment yesterday, just as they have been able to for the many achievements of his cousins.

But in the midst of joy over his winning that race yesterday, we found other things that made us very happy as well.

After Kai had finished his final race, we sat in the stands and watched races that his teammates swam in. Kai cheered loudly and enthusiastically for them. He was genuinely happy when they won their respective races, too. And for a boy who isn't always a good sport in his PE classes, that was so nice to see.

It was also nice that he wanted to say goodbye to all of them when we left, without our prompting.

Later on, at home, he talked about wanting to do more sewing and creating his plushes. He said that he needed to do it now, when he was still a kid, because after he becomes a grown up he might be married and have kids and won't have much time to do the things he wants to do. Wow, that is the most socially-aware comment we ever heard him make.

And so, I hope you all allow us this time to revel in our son's success for this one day at least.

We know that there will be more challenges to come. So we're going to enjoy this while we can! :)