Today he did it. He skied Little Cat ALL by himself. An average 4 or 5 yr old would have it figured out in a day. It's taken him 4 years. Every parent has a dream for their kid. When we found out Remy had Downs that dream obviously had to be re-defined with a great big ? mark. Mentally, physically, what would this kid be able to do???? Retarded - I know it makes people cringe and apparently it's not politically correct but by definition it means "to cause to move or proceed slowly" Another definition by Urban Dictionary is "a person born with a mental condition therefore has to work a million times harder to do simple things…." (seriously who takes 4 years to learn the bunny hill)
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given, "Remember that Remy and his challenges are PART of your family they are not THE family" Thus whether he likes it or not, we pretty much make Remy do whatever the rest of the family is doing. Remy started skiing 4 years ago. He hated it. It was a PURE STRUGGLE. We've tried different devices, and contraptions, and coaches and pretty much every lesson was a fight. Our first lesson this year was awful and I thought, "this isn't going to happen, this isn't his thing, this is not going to be something we can do as a family…GIVE IT UP" I wanted to quit, he wanted to quit... and that made me sad. Then I had a thought, that little whisper that goes through the back of your mind and says, 'don't give up quite yet, make some adjustments, give it a little bit longer, be patient.'
We made some adjustments, and kept coming back week after week. Today he finished his lesson, and I met him at the bottom of the hill. We ate lunch and typically he wants to go straight home. Today he said, "mom go ski, me ski with you." Shocked, I left our lunch half finished, bundled back up and headed out the door. I had a feeling to give him some space and let him try on his own.
I skied Little Cat with my son today and I was sobbing as I came down the hill because HE did it, He did this VERY HARD (for him) thing. I thought how very obvious this lesson, this work, that he was doing is the perfect example that ALL of us have hard things to do, to over-come, things that seem a million times too hard (for us) to do…... DONT GIVE UP!
