For many of us life these days is very peaceful, happy, and beautiful. We live in our nice homes with pantries filled with edibles, enough savings, secure jobs, loving caring husbands, and beautiful healthy smiling babies. We post our perfect family pictures, the dishes we make, and the beautiful cosy rooms in which we live while in isolation.
You are really among few of the luckiest people in this world. Life is not the same for many of us, parents of special needs children. There are people who are fighting for their children. Yes, parents of special needs children. There are a million thoughts that come and go; then again come and you have to fight so that you can be in a better state of mind to look after your totally dependent special needs child.
These children [with special needs] are not aware of any pandemic or tsunami or earthquake. They see the world with their own perspective. If God forbid, they get sick, their parents would never even dare to take them out because of their low immunity. There are many of them [special needs children] who have their weekly or monthly checkup due, and their parents are helpless under the current circumstances.
Likewise, if a frequently used item [belonging to a special needs child], like a toy or a sensory product, gets broken you can’t even imagine the enormity of tantrums or meltdowns their parents then have to face. No one can come to help. A special needs mother is suffering more than most, with the constant struggle of managing household chores alongside a fully dependent child whom she has to bathe, feed, and change.
Many of you will agree with me, but many of you may even totally disagree that we are all facing the same problem, same struggle– yes I agree we are all fighting– but you can never even imagine the situation in the house of a child with severe special needs.
So the next time whenever you feel low or depressed just imagine us [special needs parents]; that’s how hard it is for many of us during this time. And yes, I forgot to share one thing: alongside filling my pantry with edibles, I also have to make sure I have a stock of my son’s diapers within my limited capacity, keeping in mind that if they are short in the market, things may get even more challenging in my life.
I would like to share that my son and I are never afraid of social distancing, nor are we afraid of this lockdown. This is because parents like us have already been locked down: far distant from the lives of normal happy people, since the day our children are born. However, this uncertainty and fear is killing us more.
I would like to leave you all with a message: Always spread positivity, always thank Allah for His blessings and try to understand the struggle of parents of special needs children like me. We do exist, we do have dreams, we do have a heart filled with hopes and happiness and one part of our heart will always be worrying about our children.
Stay blessed.
Stay safe.
Stay happy.
Sonia Kanwal, in her own words, was an ordinary woman before becoming a mother of a special needs child. She waited for her son for 9 years, and after his birth her perspective of life, love and patience changed completely. Her son is blind, nonverbal, and severely autistic. She has struggled with her son for the past 13 years but has never doubted the power of motherhood.
