A couple of years ago we posted (here and here) about Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown’s heartbreaking series of articles about his severely disabled son, Walker. Although most of Walker’s disabilities are much more profound than anything we’ve encountered, Brown wrote about issues, feelings, and thoughts that had an eerie resonance with us.
Brown has now expanded the articles into a book, The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son. An excerpt was recently posted on the Globe‘s site. Again we saw a disquieting parallel with our own life, when Brown writes about his home’s storage of huge amounts of old supplies and equipment, kept just in case they might be needed again. Also, rooms filled with unused clothing and toys (given to Walker by well-meaning relatives) that the family can’t bear to get rid of.
We have shelves and toyboxes filled with wonderful toys given to us by friends and relatives over the years—stuffed animals, puzzle games, Lego sets, trucks—that we hoped would get lovingly used and destroyed by Jon. Unfortunately he never had much interest in plush toys, trucks or games; and lacked the manual and visual dexterity for Lego and puzzles. But we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of them, rationalizing that maybe, one day he’d want to play with them….
One of several old toy depositories littered throughout our house