Celebrity

http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/drug-shortages-are-affecting-children-nicu

It came as no surprise to me that Bo's last day of kindergarten would be special. An award-winning journalist sat in the front row, recording hours of audio footage. She walked home with us and spent another hour talking to both Bo and me (see/hear the link above).

What surprised me, strangely, was realizing how many of my friends, family and colleagues tuned into the naturally running public radio programming. And the commensurate outpouring of acknowledgement was a tremendous boost. I'm pretty sure my heart grew three sizes too big.

As we prepare to join the big, annual family reunion for a family that no one hopes to join, I'm excited for Bo. I'm deliriously happy that he is old enough to see and meet and make friends with other people with the same medical technology and the same (or higher functioning, in the case of adults and older teens) level of understanding. Not that his condition or his brilliance will ever be normalized, but that he feels this community wrapping its arms around him, and us, in a way that our dear and loving typical community cannot.

I get misty looking at Bo, not just because he is an incredible guy in his most absolute essence, but because his BEING is a result of the love from all these communities, intimate and professional, typical and affected, local and international. He is running and singing, inventing and drawing, reading and sleeping peacefully because the many gestures of many hands seen and unseen are working around the clock for him.

I'm with the band.