Brave Mom

Our family took a trip to Disneyland last month.  During our trip, my daughter and I decided to go on the Dumbo ride while my husband took my 3 older boys to ride Space Mountain.

While Molly and I were in line, a lady and her severely autistic son got in line on the fast pass line.  During the short waiting time, I noticed that the boy was grunting and softly hitting the bars.  As the wait time got longer, his grunting and hitting became louder and louder.

Watching the Mom handle her son made me feel so many emotions.  First, I thought how brave she must be for taking him to Disneyland.  Her love for her child and the courage she displayed made me admire her.  Second, it made me think of how lucky I am that I have 4 healthy children.  It made me realize that I bitch too much about how they don’t put stuff away, how many times I have to yell and remind them of basic life stuff.

After a 20-minute wait (which in Disney time equals to about 5 minutes!), it was finally time to get on the ride.  The Mom and autistic boy were on the Dumbo behind us.  When the ride was in the air, I could hear him grunting loudly.  The ride went on for a bit and then it stopped.  I thought it was a bit short and there was some confusion about whether we should get off or not.  I looked around and saw that some people exited the ride and others looked around in confusion as me.  Then I noticed a worker walk towards the Mom and the autistic child.  I couldn’t hear the words but it was clear they were asking the Mom and son to get off.  The Mom starts crying and defending her son.  As I sat there pretending not to listen, my heart ached for her.  And again her bravery was palpable.  After a few minutes of back and forth, they ended up staying on the ride and we were able to get another go on the ride.

As we strapped ourselves again, I turned around, looked at her and told her “You’re doing good!”  She had sunglasses on so I couldn’t see her eyes but I could see she was still crying.  And of course that made me emotional.

When we got off the ride, I saw another Mom who was on the ride with her son and I said to her “I felt so bad for her, what a brave Mom”.  And she said “I know, I just wanted to give her a hug!”

I walked away from that ride moved to tears.  I want other Moms of special needs children to know that we see you.  We see you struggling.  We see your bravery.