A Silent Love

She tore off a slice of pizza and nudged it onto my plate. Had I not turned around before rolling my bowling ball down the lane, I wouldn't have known. I'd never have seen the small gesture, the slight, beckoning glance that conveyed "This is for you." I'd have missed it, which is pretty much par for the course with Mackenzie. Blink your eyes and an ocean of discussion can be lost.

Ever since I was old enough to learn that there were people in the world other than myself, I've been a communicator. Fuzzy 8mm movies show me on my first birthday, party hat dangling from my ear and diapers swishing against chubby thighs, jabbering to anyone who would listen. Italian and extroverted, the give and take of verbal discourse for me is like air. The movie Castaway is on my all time list of "movies I hate," due to the sheer loneliness of it. Give me a week or two with Wilson the soccer ball as my only friend, and I'd be looking for the closest cliff from which to hurl myself.

So, on Mackenzie's 18th birthday, as the bowling ball rolled down the lane and plopped into the gutter with a thud, I jumped and laughed, asking her what she thought of Mommy's lousy bowling. There was a semi-smile, but nothing else. Silence.

Diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis complex on her first birthday, Mackenzie is moderately mentally impaired, epileptic, and exhibits autistic behaviors. She can articulate in fragments but she's not much for conversation. Don't get me wrong--she's not a quiet kid. In fact, she'll laugh at her favorite shows on Nick, tell us to move when we dare to sit in her favorite chair, or exclaim "I did it!" when she mixes pancake batter or helps us walk the dogs. To determine if she's had a good time at camp, school, a party or just about anywhere, though, we need to call people who were there. Otherwise, it may go like this:

What did you do today, sweetheart?

[Nothing.]

What was your favorite thing about today, Mackenzie?

"I'm fine."

That's nice, but what did you do today? Did you see Aaron?

"I like Sponge Bob!"

Did you make food today?

"No."

Did you do any crafts?

"Yes."

What were they?

[Silence]

Come on, sweetie. Tell me what you did.

"BOSKEEEEEEE!" (Bosco is the name of one of our dogs...somehow his name has turned into a happy Mackenzie chant, to be repeated multiple times for reasons unknown to us.)

In stressful or unusual situations, she surprises us by belting it out like a talk show host. On one particularly memorable Halloween evening, she insisted on leaving a party due to the host's frightening decorations. She stationed herself next to our car and exclaimed, "I want to go home right now. Do you hear me? Right now! It's scaring me and I SAID I am going home! Right now!" I asked myself, where the heck did that come from?

Such occasions remind me that there is much more in Mackenzie's mind than any of us can understand or comprehend. I'm reminded that my daughter is a mystery...in many ways a gift to be opened, like those Russian nesting dolls, one by one. But slowly, excruciatingly slowly, over the months and years.

So on her August 16 birthday, we did the mother/daughter thing: First, the bowling, followed by lunch, then a mani-pedi, a shopping trip to Target and finally, a visit to Chilli's for a big hot fudge sundae. Perhaps ten sentences were exchanged the whole day. I found myself reaching for my iPhone--a communication fix of any kind, be it e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, anything--but I resisted. Despite her lack of verbal discourse, she is very aware of her surroundings. She deserves the respect of an attentive mother.

It was at Target, observing a number of other moms with their college-bound 18 year olds, that I succumbed to a moment of melancholy. They were stocking up on bedding and toiletries, disagreeing on purchases, laughing over comments too soft for me to overhear, calling out to each other and comparing pants, pajamas, and sweaters. The words blurred together and became a hum of sorts; the buzz of communication.

It's then that I allowed myself a little daydream--one I've had before--of Mackenzie and me in Heaven. You see, it's my hope that some day we'll get to catch up on everything we wanted to say on Earth. Since people with tuberous sclerosis complex don't always live full lives, in my daydream she is at the foot of my bed, as an angel, while I am dying. (For some reason I think I'm going to die in a bed, but that's besides the point.) As I pass over into my new life, she is bubbling over with excitement with all the things she can't wait to tell me. We hug and laugh, and she's healthy as a horse. It's then that she spills forth about what she loved during her life on Earth, what she hated, what she thought when we did this, that or the other. I ask her if I was a good mom or did I lose my patience too often, why did God allow her to suffer so, and she holds me and tells me to forget about all that, because we are going to have a wonderful time throughout eternity. There's a lot of joy in this daydream. Bright light, too.

"Can I have it?"

Holding a computer game and a package of Play Dough, she smiled. I'm back at Target, very much alive, and very much in the here and now.

"Of course you can have it," I replied. "It's your birthday, sweetheart."

"Am I silly, Mommy?"

"You're a sweetheart, Mackenzie."

We drove home, where I told my husband all about our mother/daughter day of fun while Mackenzie opened the Play Dough. I hugged our younger girls and learned all about their days, which they more than wanted to discuss.

It was the following evening, as I was opening the refrigerator door to pull out the milk, when I heard it. "Thank you, Mom." I turned around to see Mackenzie smiling at me. "For what?" "For yesterday." "Yesterday?" "Bowling. Pizza. Nails. Thank you." I stood there holding the milk, speechless. Yes, speechless. As if to punctuate the moment to ensure I understood her, she said "I had fun."

And so did I. My daughter has taught me more in 18 years than I could ever fit into a blog post, but one thing I never anticipated, one thing I didn't consider, is the value of a relationship where few words are spoken.

The gift of a silent love.

Happy birthday to me! Holding a present at Target.