In April of 2014, we took Tim on his first vacation. We were going to the beach, and sharing a house with my in-laws. With nine people in the house, Tim had to share a room with us. The only place in the room that was large enough to accommodate his crib was the walk-in closet.
Tim, like so many children who have ACC was a terrible sleeper, even by baby standards. When he would wake up at night, he couldn’t self-soothe, and either my wife or I had to hold him and rock him for hours to get him to sleep. Often, the act of putting him back to bed would wake him again, and the cycle would repeat. Add to that a new environment with new, noisy people, and Tim hardly slept for those five days. But it’s against that backdrop that I’d like to tell the following story:
“We’re going to the zoo,” Heather said.
“Uhhh, what?” I asked. My eyes were closed and I had been on the verge of napping.
“The zoo. With animals,” she said.
“Ok,” I said. I yawned and stood up. “When?”
“In ten minutes.” Heather said. “Go get ready.”
“What about Tim?” I asked.
“I’ll get Tim ready,” she said.
I muddled about in the bedroom, trying to find my left shoe, which I had kicked off earlier. I stumbled around feeling more and more foolish, until I bumped into Tim’s crib. I jerked fully awake, and noticed that my shoe had landed in the crib. “Touchdown!” I thought.
The Florida Panhandle is fairly muggy in early April, and wasn’t helping my mood. I’d been so close to sleep, and now, here I was, trudging around in the heat, carrying all thousand pounds of gear that new dads seem to be destined to carry. I was keeping my head down and my thoughts to myself, so that I wouldn’t ruin the adventure.
Finally, it was my turn to carry Tim. He was so much lighter than the bag I’d been carrying, and my mood started to improve. The zoo was very small, and not worth writing home about, except for the giraffes. At this zoo, you could get right up against the fence and feed them. While this isn’t a novel thing, it was the first time I’d experienced it, and I got to hold Tim up to the giraffe. After a while, we walked to the next exhibit.
On the way there, we saw a cage with gibbons in it. Gibbons are known as lesser-apes, which means they don’t have tails, but share much in common with monkeys. As we watched, one of the gibbons stared us down, and started calling at us. The call was somewhere between a woof and a howl and a hoot, and was shockingly loud. I knew in my heart that in just a second, Tim would start bawling in terror.
Instead, Tim started making a noise I’d never heard him make before. In my sleep-deprived confusion, I looked at Heather. She was staring at Tim. He made the sound again. He was laughing. HE WAS LAUGHING!
If you’ve read any of my other work, you’ll know the journey we’ve been on with Tim, and the bleak prognosis he was given at birth. Tim smiled a lot, but other than crying, was a very quiet child. We just assumed that laughing—and talking—were skills that were years away.
The gibbon barked again, and Tim laughed again. Only this time, it wasn’t just a short laugh, but was a long, rolling belly-laugh, the kind that makes every parent in the world melt with delight. I don’t how much time passed as we stood there with our new gibbon friend, but every time it would yodel, Tim would respond with more of those wonderful, deep laughs.
I clearly remember that after the shock of Tim’s new skill wore off, Heather and I started laughing, too. I’m sure we were quite the sight- a pair of bedraggled parents, giggling like mad while their baby communicated with a small caged ape.
Finally, our new friend got tired of this game, and stopped chatting with us. Tim got quiet, like he always did when he was very tired. I don’t remember much about the zoo after that, because once Tim settled down, my exhaustion returned. We made it back to the car, and made it through the rest of the vacation.
In the years since, I’ve forgotten exactly what it feels like to be new-parent tired, and I’ve forgotten how long those nights rocking Tim felt. But the gibbons in the cage are a memory that I will carry for the rest of my life. I can see those moments now as clearly as if they were happening now, and not years ago.
Parenting, and parenting children with special needs, is a long, tiring road. There are many bad days, and many days that you wish you could curl up and hide from the world. But, there are also great days. The kind that live with you forever, and make every bad day pale in comparison. The truth I have learned is that the great days don’t come about despite the bad days, but rather, the great days come about because of the bad days.
So, when life, or your kids or your lack of sleep gets you down and the world seems bleak, start looking for your gibbon—I assure you, it’s out there, waiting for you to walk past its cage.
As the proud father of three children, as well as an MFA graduate and published author, John spends most of his time trying to balance the demands of being a writer and a parent all at once. Most of the time, it’s an uphill battle. As the parent of a child with special needs, John tries to use his talent for writing to bring inspiration and hope to his readers.
For more information about John Will you can visit his website at the Writing Dad, Here and Facebook page Here.
Cover Photo: Jessica Meyrick