Just when I thought our family is immune to the Flu, it hit us face on and knocked down the men in the family.
The week of the Flu demanded my double efforts and attention. To closely monitor him throughout the day, his body language, to carefully look at his eyes and check for hand gestures that can convey bad physical sensations he is having. For example, now I already know that putting his head on the pillow in the living room means nausea, and I can recognize a headache when he puts his hand on his forehead in a very particular manner. My child doesn’t know how to put in words what he feels, and in fact, he has only recently managed to say the oh-so-trivial word sequence – “my head hurts” in real time.
I don’t know how much time will pass until we’ll be able to explain to him the meaning of every physical discomfort and how to say it in words, in language that allows us to understand him. If he asks me for a shower with hot water before bedtime, I begin to suspect that something is not well. I try to remember what and how much he had to eat that day, I check his hand gestures and make sure, just to be safe, that medicine is close by.
That’s how it is with us, an intensive learning marathon of signs that never ends, and when the moment comes where he manages to express a new word that tells us what happens to him inside, we feel like a rock has been lifted from our chest. A relief hard to measure in his and our lives. Try to imagine yourselves in a foreign country. Around you are only native speakers and you don’t have the ability to explain yourselves. You wander around for a long time and fail to communicate with others. You are in a situation where you need help but nobody understands you. And then, after a long time, you manage to figure out one word which creates a dialogue and changes everything. You succeed in explaining yourselves and your environment understands and reacts accordingly. This moment is etched in memory. When he succeeds, he is thrilled and excited that we finally understand him and his world. Apparently he too remembers this special moment and therefore manages to put together the right words when this moment is repeated, in order to get what he wants. It takes time. A lot of time. But when it succeeds, we are reminded that the effort was well worth it.
