Happy Birthday, Shane.
Today my baby turns 15.
When Shane was born, he cried so long and loud, he popped a little hole in his lung called a pneumothorax. They had to rush him to the NICU at the hospital and plonk a pacifier into his mouth so the little hole would heal. Conveniently, the birth had been so traumatic for both of us that I was allowed to stay in the hospital for three whole days, healing with him.
I remember the first time Shane heard my voice, how his eyes got huge like blue saucers. He knew me. He knew who I was. That simple fact made me ecstatic just to be alive.
When Shane was in preschool, he was sweet and quiet and content. But one day, the teacher pulled me aside after school. She explained that Shane had spent his recess with his head inside a giant dollhouse – the rest of his body didn’t fit. She couldn’t get him to come out of the dollhouse, so she thought we might want to talk to him and see if anything was wrong.
We talked to Shane and indeed, something was wrong. A little girl had told him he couldn’t go down the playhouse slide. Rather than standing up for himself and sliding, he stuck his head in the dollhouse. That very day, we started to spend more time with Shane, working on social skills and getting his needs met. I, especially, gave him as much positive encouragement as I could. Until that point, he’d seemed so content, we thought he didn’t need it.
When Shane was in kindergarten, his teacher noticed that he wasn’t looking at her during carpet time. He would yell out the answers to questions and always knew what was going on, but he sometimes sat on his head instead of “criss-cross applesauce.”
He’d sat on his head his whole life, I told the teacher. Even when he was a baby, he’d put his face on the floor and his diaper in the air. He seemed perfectly content, like he was soaking in the music of the world. The teacher thought we should have a meeting with the special ed team, just in case.
Thank God for that teacher. Shane had a vision processing disorder and couldn’t focus visually on anything. He spent two years in vision therapy, which allowed his vision to catch up with his other, exceptionally alert senses. Without vision therapy, Shane would never have been able to read.
When Shane was finally able to express himself, he discovered magic and became a performing magician. He loved acting classes and the science museum and writing stories and songs. He adored his few close friends and idolized his big brother. Shane was always interested in numbers and cared more about how many pages were in a book than what the story held.
He is sensitive and sweet, yet ultimately cool. He’s so laid back, sometimes you have to guess if he’s paying attention. But he soaks in everything around him, like a giant, happy sponge, and uses it to his advantage – often in increasingly humorous ways. Shane is incredibly funny.
Shane has been a delight in my life for the past 15 years. He’s made me realize that being slightly off-center is not just a good thing, but a wonderful and exceptional part of being real. Shane has made me appreciate the way I am, just by being who he is. And “who he is” is so incredibly special, I can’t even begin to put it into words.
Happy birthday, Shane. Thanks forever for being you.