The strange mom

What if our founding forefathers knew a secret that we have forgotten?

What if we aren’t seeing the point?

They knew we’d eventually be taken down by our own lack of human dignity. Kind of like the one thread that unravels the whole sweater, slowly letting go of all the other threads.

What if religion is just a story? Like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and the Easter bunny with it’s chocolate treats. Something that was made originally to guide people who felt lost

.A reason to keep living.

A reason to want to live another day.

Even if you have no family or friends.

You’re still promised something in the end.

If you just follow the rules.

And also treat others how you would want to be treated!

Turns out that doesn’t quite add up.

After reading “A man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl, I began digesting his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to each person’s life through one of three ways: the completion of tasks, caring for another person, or finding meaning by facing suffering with dignity.

I thought of an encounter l had in an elevator on the way to an oncology appointment with my son. A man got on the elevator at one of the stops. We were probably 6 months into his treatment and Freddie was completely bald. After a few minutes the man handed me twenty dollars and said, “Please buy yourself some lunch. I know what it’s like to be here, I went through this with my daughter years ago.” I was surprised and said thank you. Moments like that don’t happen often but when they do you can feel the understanding of the truth. Like the big, heavy, red curtain gets pulled back for a moment and someone peeks in on you.

That was six years ago.

Now people look at my son like he is a waste of their tax dollars. Because he has Down syndrome and autism.

My son fought cancer for 3 years. He is almost five years out of treatment now. He fought to stay here, only to be measured by his economic output to a society that thinks human worth is something you calculate on a spreadsheet.The people who look at my son and see a waste of their money think they are the smart ones following the rules of some old story. But they are the ones who are lost. They have forgotten the golden rule: treating others how you would want to be treated. When we decide that certain people do not deserve baseline human dignity, we pull at the thread.

My son’s value doesn’t depend on their approval. He faces his life with an inherent dignity every single day. If our country wants to stop unraveling, we have to remember how to peek through the curtain. Just because you haven’t looked lately doesn’t mean that we aren’t still there, shuffling back and forth between reality and hope.