Opening Hearts Building Strong Minds

On a recent vacation we had the opportunity to visit the Tower of Voices  memorial of flight 93 in PA. Standing 93 ft tall with 40 perfectly balanced chimes representing the lives of crew and passengers, even the slightest breeze creates a beautiful array of sounds allowing all to hear the voices that hate failed to silence. They live on with every puff of air, continuing to tell their story. To stand there hearing those chimes makes it impossible not to feel. Even my usually hyper, loud, rambunctious child was moved to silence. The feeling is beyond words and the souls of those lost are truly felt throughout the memorial.

The feelings I experienced there remained once we returned home, leading me to contemplate the voices in our lives. Voices in the sense of what we hear, how we communicate, and what we say. Standing there at the foot of that tribute and hearing those chimes I believed that I could hear their voices and I knew that I could feel the love behind them without the benefit of hearing the actual words.

What we hear. I have this habit of counting the stairs when walking with my daughter. This began when we moved into our new home when she was 4 years old and learning to navigate the stairs for the first time. For me, it is also a byproduct of my ADHD to count random things like stairs etc. As she got older, the habit continued as she also acquired her own diagnosis of ADHD, further solidifying the whole counting thing. One morning as we walked down to prepare for school, I began my usual count of 1, 2, 3, when I heard her little voice behind me counting uno, dos, tres. I joined her in counting the stairs in Spanish and learned that we both could count to ten and no further. Thus began our journey in learning Spanish together. I began with flash cards and moved into labeling things in her environment to learn their names. Once I seen that this was something she had a solid interest in, I bought a subscription to Rosetta Stone. I heard her desire to learn this language not be her telling me in words so much that she wanted to learn, but by her doing what comes naturally. She knew how to count those stairs because we had done it multiple times a day for the last 5 years. She took her newfound knowledge of Spanish and applied it to a situation with which she was familiar. She communicated a desire to learn.

How we communicate. Having a child with a cognitive disability, or any disability that affects communication, can be like communicating with someone who speaks a foreign language. I cannot count how many times over the years I struggled to understand my child’s needs or wants simply because I was ignorant of the language she was speaking. This is not daily things like she wants a snack or needs the bathroom, this is more about her feeling anxious, or sad, or not understanding how to effectively communicate how she is feeling in that moment. There are times when she is angry, and I feel like I need to play the game of 20 Questions to try and figure out what is wrong. Or when she cries for no reason, and I feel helpless to understand just what it is that is causing her sadness. What do you do when your child cannot tell you how they are feeling or why they are experiencing that feeling? It is like being in a pitch-black room and you cant find the light switch because someone keeps moving it just when you think you have found it. Or you get lucky and find it but the next time you go to that area you find that you are in a completely different room and the process begins again. What we usually end up with is a child that is even more frustrated due to our efforts and ourselves in a tailspin of despair because we cant solve the invisible problem.

My daughter is one of these communicators. There is so much she cannot tell me with her words in these moments because she gets confused on how to tell me, or she has forgotten the situation, but the feelings of anger or sadness remain, and she is struggling then to process a feeling that she cannot remember why she has. I try to manage these situations by not reacting to the emotion. By not showing my own frustration, sadness, or feelings of inadequacy in that moment because everything she is feeling is going to be mirrored on my face. If it is mirrored, then her feelings are magnified. This translates to any situation with students in academia. Especially those with disabilities. There are many things I do to communicate with my daughter in these situations that do not require words. I hug, hold, give space and time to regulate the emotion before words are used. Then it is a calm and comforting voice telling her that how she is feeling is okay and that we all have big feelings and emotions sometimes. Usually this approach, for me, will give a soft glow to the dark room. Just enough to find the door sometimes.

What we say. What we say is just as important as what we do not say. There were no words spoken that day as I stood listening to the chimes of the memorial, yet I heard every syllable as though the words were being whispered directly to me. I saw no faces or expressions to gauge the emotion of the unspoken words, yet I experienced the feelings behind the sounds. I felt no touch of hands, yet I felt the love pour out with every chime. This monument, created of metal and perfectly balanced chimes, had the capacity to evoke all of this in me. It was a place of comfort and not one of sadness. Hate did not win nor did anger. Love won and will continue to win.

I ask myself today, what am I saying? Am I a beacon of love and acceptance for my child? What does my face show in those difficult moments? What do I say without my words or my touch? These are often the questions I ask when the days are challenging, and I feel quick to react. Does she look at me and feel the love that I have for her regardless of the situation? Does she know the love is still there even when my reaction is poor? Does she hear my chimes beneath the anger I sometimes express?

My feelings experienced at the Tower of Voices were born of a foreknowledge of what it represented. I applied my knowledge to the situation, and I was rewarded with a range of evoked emotions I did not expect but am better for. I hope similarly that my daughter will use her foreknowledge of what she knows of me to see me as a beacon of comfort when she is experiencing emotions that she cannot verbally express.