Tink (Serenity), December 19, 2009
I think that sometimes we’re given challenges in life that maybe only we are able to handle, things made for us to build and test our character. Maybe we’re given these things to teach other people about compassion and what it means to see past differences. I’m not talking about my paralysis this time. I’m talking about Tink.
When she was born, she was born without the radial bone in either of her arms, which caused her hands (mainly her thumbs) to be undeveloped too. After three surgeries (one to straighten her left forearm and two on her hands to reposition her pointer fingers as thumbs), she has four digits on each hand, instead of five.
This year, she started preschool, and in just the past few months, the surgeries and differences (I HATE the word deformities) in her hands are not normal to her anymore. They are painstakingly obvious because now she has 25 other kids that point them out to her. We, as a family, have never made a big deal about it because she can use them and get things done with adaptations and a little patience. Her hands are just hers, and they aren’t even noticeable to me anymore.
But she has been noticing, and it kills me. She told me last week “I don’t want just four fingers anymore. You have five, and Makinna (her sister) has five. I want five.” I almost cried, but I did the best I could to reassure her that four fingers are just fine, and that she is special. I don’t know how long that line will work, but for now she seems content knowing she is special.
She is only four years old. She shouldn’t know any of the evils of the world yet, the misconceptions, the cruelties. It makes me want to just wrap her up and protect her until she can understand fully that her disability is a part of her that makes me her beautiful. Even though she can drive me crazy sometimes, she truly is one of the most beautiful, sweetest little girls (okay, so maybe I am bias being her aunt and all). I hate that her future is surely going to be riddled with things that will make her want to cry and run away, but I think that she is strong and stubborn enough, even now at four, to get past those things and be a better person for it.
She’s tough, and I know she’ll be fine.