Good and Bad are incomplete stories we tell ourselves

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There's an ancient parable about a farmer who lost his horse. And neighbors came over to say, "Oh, that's too bad." And the farmer said, "Good or bad, hard to say." Days later, the horse returns and brings with it seven wild horses. And neighbors come over to say, "Oh, that's so good!" And the farmer just shrugs and says, "Good or bad, hard to say." The next day, the farmer's son rides one of the wild horses, is thrown off and breaks his leg. And the neighbors say, "Oh, that's terrible luck." And the farmer says, "Good or bad, hard to say." Eventually, officers come knocking on people's doors, looking for men to draft for an army, and they see the farmer's son and his leg and they pass him by. And neighbors say, "Ooh, that's great luck!" And the farmer says, "Good or bad, hard to say."

I did not have the equanimity of the farmer. The situation looked unequivocally bad to me. But here's where the parable is so useful, because, for weeks after her diagnosis, I felt gripped by despair, locked in the story that all of this was tragic. Reality, though -- thankfully -- is much more fluid, and it has much more to teach. As I started to get to know this mysterious person who was my kid, my fixed, tight story of tragedy loosened. It turned out my girl loved reggae, and she would smirk when my husband would bounce her tiny body up and down to the rhythm. Her onyx eyes eventually turned the most stunning Lake Tahoe blue, and she loved using them to gaze intently into other people's eyes. At five months old, she could not hold her head up like other babies, but she could hold this deep, intent eye contact. One friend said, "She's the most aware baby I've ever seen."

But where I saw the gift of her calm, attentive presence, an occupational therapist who came over to our house to work with Fiona saw a child who was neurologically dull. This therapist was especially disappointed that Fiona wasn't rolling over yet, and so she told me we needed to wake her neurology up. One day she leaned over my daughter's body, took her tiny shoulders, jostled her and said, "Wake up! Wake up!" We had a few therapists visit our house that first year, and they usually focused on what they thought was bad about my kid. I was really happy when Fiona started using her right hand to bully a dangling stuffed sheep, but the therapist was fixated on my child's left hand. Fiona had a tendency not to use this hand very often, and she would cross the fingers on that hand.So the therapist said we should devise a splint, which would rob my kid of the ability to actually use those fingers, but it would at least force them into some position that looked normal.

In that first year, I was starting to realize a few things. One: ancient parables aside, my kid had some bad therapists.