Resilient

Definition of RESILIENT

: characterized or marked by resilience: as a : capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture b : tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

Last week a licensed, trained and paid-to-know-better person told me “children are resilient. Your son will adjust to any decisions you make for your life”.

To be honest, that statement angered and hurt me. I quickly told her, “you don’t understand. You don’t know what he has experienced. You didn’t see him in May when our time was limited to 15 minutes a day. You didn’t see how he pushed me away at bedtime and continued to push me away until just two weeks ago. You didn’t hear him as he cried and howled in anger and pain for hours after going to bed. It has been six months since I heard my son say ‘I love you, Mommy’.” At this point I cried and I told her, “every day for six months when I have told my son I loved him he shook his head vehemently and said ‘no, Mommy, I don’t want it’”.

Over the weekend I watched my son chase, and catch, a ginormous chicken. I watched with a mix of amazement and fear as he turned to me and yelled “Mommy, I caught it!”. After he safely put it down and walked back towards me I couldn’t help but think of how tough he is.

I started thinking about what it means to be tough or resilient. If Duc had gotten scratched and pecked would I still have thought he was tough for catching that chicken? No. Chances are I would have forgotten the fact that he caught the chicken, I would only remember the visit to the Emergency Room. I would have remembered his cries of fear and pain and not the momentary awe of doing the unthinkable.

And what of resiliency? Isn’t being resilient just another way of saying survivor? And isn’t that just another way of saying something didn’t kill you? I have to be honest, I want more for my son. I want him to be able to say he did more than live through something.