What the Doctors Told My Mom

The doctors told my mom
I'd have trouble

That or I'd be trouble
I can't remember which

They said I'd be a handful
So maybe trouble
Maybe they said I'd be trouble
And, by way of being trouble
I'd have trouble
As would she, of course
For having to deal with me

That was the expression that always set her off

People asking--'How do you deal with--?'

It would make her incredibly angry

My mother lost two children
And then had me

She was so happy
The idea of me being something
She had to 'deal with'
Was lunacy to her
And later on, it became so to me
Although I didn't blame the doctors
They were just trying to warn her
About the Maybe's

There were a lot of Maybe's

Maybe I wouldn't talk
Maybe I wouldn't hear
Maybe I wouldn't be able to understand

That would be the scariest one, of course

You can hear and talk and see and think and articulate
And elaborate and describe and delineate, I suppose

But to never be able to understand
Or to make yourself understood
Well...

That would be the ultimate darkness, it seems

The doctors told my Mom
She and I might pass by each other
Our entire lives
Never quite seeing
Eye-to-eye

But a mother understands her child
Before the child understands itself
And so despite them telling her about the Options
The Options for me
For when I was born

For when I could be brought somewhere
Taken somewhere
Where I could be cared for
By people who also wouldn't understand me
But would at least be all right with not understanding me
My mother understood enough
To tell all those doctors to--

Well, I shouldn't repeat it
It isn't the nicest choice of words

Suffice it to say--

The doctors told my mother something
And my mother told the doctors something

And the doctors went away
And then it was my mother and me

And things were hard
And they were always hard
And that's what I want to say
That this isn't a 'The doctors were wrong' story

At least, not completely
They were not
Completely
Wrong

But there is something they were wrong about

I'm standing here at my mother's funeral
Talking about her
And as I do

I see my son sitting in the front row

A son I'm sure the doctors expected
I'd never be able
To have or care for

Granted, they know more now
Than they do then

These were Then doctors
Not Now doctors

Now doctors understand more
Than Then doctors did

But...

I look at my son
And I understand something about my mother

And I understand
That she probably always understood me

And that's why she took me home
And that's why she fought past the hard
And the difficult

And that's why I can stand here now
And speak so eloquently about her

She taught me to speak
She taught me to listen
And she taught me how to make myself be understood

How she did all that
I'll never understand

But hopefully
I'll take my son home with me today
And with each day that goes by
I'll understand
A little more