The Town of Denial

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross defined grief in five stages the first being denial.  I will admit that I have been camped out in denial, I have moved in and bought a double wide trailer, that our company will not insure, in the town of Denial.  Ok, maybe not the trailer part but you get the idea.  I hadn't realized that I had taken up residence in denial until last week when we went to visit the Deaf Preschool and I got to observe children with hearing losses like Colin's.  For some reason observing that class was a reality check.  I realized at that moment that I had been in complete denial about Colin and about how our life was changing.  I realized I had been telling everyone what they wanted to hear that we were ok and that everything was going great.  I had been truly in denial about my feelings but more importantly how Colin's life would be impacted long-term.

I know people mean well when they say "everything is going to be fine...at least you caught it early...he will be fine."  I know the expected response from me is to smile and give a polite response when you really want to say, "I am sad...I want to blame someone...I blame myself."  Most people really don't want to hear that kind of honesty, most people don't really want to know how you really feel.  I will be the first to stand-up and say I liked living in denial it was a safe place but just not a very honest place. 

Kubler-Ross's next stage is anger which I can say that I have moved on to and unfortunately has come out to some unsuspecting people...sorry about that.  Acceptance is the final stage.  Like most things in my life I have tried to push myself to get there first but the reality is that it is ok if it takes a little bit longer.  If I am no longer going to be in denial then I need time and I need to work through getting to acceptance which isn't going to happen over night.

This week was a huge step in getting closer to the place of acceptance.  We had Colin's assessment done through Child Find and started working with this amazing person who is helping Colin learn to speak and most importantly listen.  She came to our house on Tuesday and worked with Colin one-on-one for an hour.  She created games around speech and by the end of the session Colin had started to put words together to form simple phrases.  Something he really had not done before.

I realize that this Blog is not my typical Blog but I needed to share this because I felt if I was honest with others I would be honest with myself.  I also wanted to give others the permission that we sometimes need to not be alright all of the time.  A friend reminded me the other day it really had only been 60 days since Colin's diagnosis and although we have a lot to be thankful for it was ok to be sad and to have feelings.