The Lightning Kid and the Father of the King - What Would Have Been

As the year drew toward Yuletime, the King's thoughts always turned toward his own father who had passed away around those same holidays over 10 years before. The King always missed his father but the pain was usually sharpest around Yuletime.

Since the birth of the Lightning Kid, the King had wondered how his father might have reacted to the young prince. It went beyond wishing that the man could have gotten to know his grandchildren; the King figured that his father had very little experience with special people like the Lightning Kid and he was afraid that their bond would not have been as strong...

While the King knew this kind of speculation was the province of the madman, he couldn't help himself, and in quieter moments of the year gone by the doubts preyed on his mind. Would the King's father have held the prince at arms length? Pitied him perhaps?

Now that the Lightning Kid was over a year old, one could see many dimensions to his personality.  He was energetic and dynamic.  He had a mischievous sense of humour.  He liked to be LOUD.  He was persistent (this would have been one his grandfather's favourite qualities).  And so the King realised that even if his father wouldn't have known what to make of a boy like the Lightning Kid, he would have fallen in love with the boy that the Lightning Kid was becoming.  In fact, the King suspected that somewhere up there, he was.

The Lightning Kid and the Tiny Titans

The one thing that scared the King and Queen the most about the Lightning Kid was the idea that he couldn't hear.  Over the course of his very young life he had been tested many times by various healers in the Kingdom; sometimes even in other kingdoms.  The results were never wholly positive but they also varied in terms of how much hearing loss the Prince had.

The King and Queen knew not only that the Prince needed to hear for listening, but also that it was important for learning how to talk.  They had reason to expect that he would experience delays in verbal communication due to his condition anyway, and knowing that in most kingdoms, making yourself understood was very important: in short, if one didn’t understand what you had to say, one would assume you don’t have anything to say.  And so the King and Queen were vigilant about finding ways to help the Lightning Kid earn the gift of language.

Things had been worse in the earlier days - when the Prince was only a few months old, the idea that he couldn’t hear was heartbreaking to the King and Queen.  They would speak to him, sing him to sleep - how were they supposed to bond with him if not through such means?  The notion of him being stone deaf was debunked quickly, and as he got older, they noticed him hearing various things, and especially having trouble getting to sleep when Shark Boy JUST... WOULDN’T...BE...QUIET.

So many of the healers they pursued wanted to adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to the Lightning Kid’s progress; the inconsistent results to tests made them think that maybe the problem would lessen as he grew - a reasonable assumption, however, they probably also thought that accepting delays in the Lightning Kid’s speech development were ‘reasonable’ too... the King and Queen were less willing to toe that line and strove to get the Prince the care he deserved.

Finally, after much effort, the Lightning Kid was scheduled by a healer to have magic embedded in his ears; magic that was intended to remove what was blocking the sound.  The King and Queen took him to a place for Sick Children, and found everyone there to be very cheerful and helpful.  To put in the magic, the Lightning Kid would need to be put into a magical sleep, and that meant not feeding him for hours before the operation, so in the preceding time, the Prince became quite cranky and whiny.  The King was able to rock him to sleep briefly, but he woke shortly before his parents had to hand him off to the healers to be enchanted to sleep.  They knew he was in good hands, and yet still they worried, unused to being separated from him under such circumstances.They soon heard from the healer who was to put the magic in to remove the blockage.  She was smiling, as she had been successful and everything had gone well.  Though, apparently it had been a little difficult to fit magic into his tiny ears.  It had taken the smallest magic they had... a pair of 'Tiny Titans'!

After that, it was simply a matter of testing the hearing - normal on the right ear, and very minor hearing loss on the right!  The Titans were working their magic.  The Lightning Kid bounced back very quickly from the ordeal, and the King and Queen were overjoyed.

Over the next few days, they noticed that the Prince was a little more responsive, and he seemed to look around his environments with wider eyes than usual.  The biggest difference though, was making sure that during bath times and swimming lessons, the Tiny Titans wouldn't get drowned...

Time In A Bottle

The King and the Lightning Kid had been out for a Chariot ride.  This had become a tradition of a good two weeks, and the King enjoyed it heartily.  For his part, the Lightning Kid... fell asleep.  On this particular day, the King was grateful for it since it had been getting harder to get him to take naps.  Still, once the ride was complete, the King did not want to leave the prince in the Chariot; knowing his nap had lasted nearly an hour and a half, the King opted to remove the Prince from the Chariot, and in so doing, woke him up.

The King brought the Prince into the castle, and noticed that he was still a little groggy, so he took the time to snuggle him to his chest, and get cheek to cheek with him.  The Prince giggled and kissed back as good as he got.  The Lightning Kid had been learning to crawl, to cruise and to climb and take on the world for himself.  The King knew that times like these would become ever the more scarce.

He took the moment and sealed it in a bottle, which he kept in the cellar with many others.

The Word and the Witch

There was a word that was sometimes used within the kingdom, that was feared and hated by the King and Queen. People used it to describe things they hated, things they found ridiculous or lacking in common sense. It could be used to describe someone who was acting stupidly. And the King and Queen knew that someday, somewhere, someone would use it to hurt the Lightning Kid.

Luckily, there were movements afoot, where people pledged not to use the word, and the King and Queen were not confronted with its use as often as they feared. Still, one day, a witch called the leader of a great land the dreaded word, and many were up in arms over the statement.

The King knew the witch to be what she was, meaning it was in her nature to say things that were cruel, mean, evil or false. She would continue to say such things as she always had, and never apologize, so there was no sense making such demands. The King envied the Queen, who had never heard of this creature; but he felt drawing more attention to the witch would only give her more power.

Still the furore continued, and the King began to change his mind. While he remained steadfast in his belief that the witch could not be redeemed, he figured that by calling out her transgression, others who did not wish to be identified with the witch's evil ways would realize their use of the dreaded word was inappropriate. So he made her use of the word known, and he made it known that the word offended the royal family, and it was an offence against the young prince.

Knowing how awful the witch was, people took the pledge in droves...

The Lightning Kid and the Boobless Wonder

One day the Lightning Kid woke up from a nap, and he was hungry. He cried, and found a shape moving toward him. The shape looked, sounded, and smelled like his father the King, but he was too desperate for milk to be bothered to find out.

He cried some more as the shape tried to pull him out of his sleep-sack. Since this did not involve nipples or milk, the Lightning Kid twisted, turned and fought with all the electrical energy within his little body.

The shape tried to stand him up on his change table. This gave the little prince the chance to search for precious boobs by pulling down the neckline of the shirt he found. There were no boobs, but there were a few hairs that only his little fingers would be able to grab. Once he had almost a fistful, he was able to give them a good pull. The shape yelped but still did not give him the milk he wanted.

The Lightning Kid had noticed that the shape's chest was not shaped like boobs, but he must have figured that nipples might still be under that shirt, so with a marksman's precision, he reached out, grabbed at the shirt at precisely the right spot, then squeezed with his freakish, lightning powered strength. The shape screamed, and the next thing the Lightning Kid knew, he was being handed over to the Queen, where he could feed to his heart's content.

It would not be the last time the young prince would face the Boobless Wonder, but his brave tactics always resulted in victory and milk.
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

Standing On the Shoulders of Giants

While there are many Down Syndrome Superstars nowadays, and a great community of DS Advocates and parents on social media and the blogosphere, it's important to remember those who have blazed the trail for us.  Before blogs, before the internet even, there were families striving to give their children, brothers and sisters the best opportunities and the best lives possible, in a world that probably seemed like it was bent on denying them those same chances.

The Lightning Kid turned one year old, and the King and Queen could hardly believe that much time had passed, nor how much different their world seemed.  The Princes' birthdays were cause for wild, festive celebration, and much was done to mark the occasion.   For the King and Queen, though, it was also a time to reflect.

The King took more walks alone, and though he had chastised himself for doing it too much all too recently, he found himself trying to stare into the future.  He climbed to the top of a hill and stared ahead at the horizon.  As usual, much was cloudy, and unknowable.  Still, he found that if he really concentrated, he could pierce the fog with his vision, and see quite far indeed.

The world of the Lightning Kid's future was one where he could ride as a knight, as any other prince might expect to.  He could serve his kingdom, as any other prince might expect to.  He could marry a princess, as any other prince might expect to.  The King marveled, and asked himself not only how such a future might be possible, but how he could even bring it into focus, when such things would have been unimaginable in his youth.  He turned his eyes from the horizon to his feet, and that was when he noticed that he was not standing on a hill, but on the shoulders of a Giant.  He looked around some more, and the Giant was one of many, all gathered in a cluster, all facing the same direction.

The King turned to the Giants and said: "Thank-you for what you have done; for the strides you have taken, and the ground you have broken for families like mine.  It couldn't have been easy, nor will our path be an easy one, but I hope that we will one day grow to your stature, and that those that follow us might one day see further still by standing on our shoulders too."

Shark Boy`s Day in the Sun (and Shadow)

As the autumn deepened, the Prince’s birthdays approached.  When Shark Boy turned three years of age, the King and Queen had time to reflect.  They thought warmly of the ways their lives had changed, and the ways they themselves had been transformed as people by becoming parents.

“I am so proud of our rambunctious, fun-loving, goofy, sporty, adventurous, energetic, generous, loving and charismatic little guy! “ announced the Queen.  He possessed all these qualities and more, thought the King.  He was also clearly bright, strong in body and will and would have made any father proud.  What the King had said made him the proudest, however, was his good heart.  Shark Boy knew how to show kindness to many, but none more so than the Lightning Kid, who he regularly smothered with hugs and affection.

Shark Boy’s birthday came and was a grand day indeed.  The sun seemed to shine upon him, and he took full advantage; in that light, the King felt like he could see into his future.  A child like the Lightning Kid would be blessed to have a brother like Shark Boy, and the King and Queen could be proud of how they were raising him so far.  Still, as the King thought ahead (as he was wont to do), he knew the Lightning Kid would need the care of an older brother when he and the Queen would be long gone.  And then he felt guilty for saddling Shark Boy with that responsibility.  He worried further, since he knew it would likely be impossible for the Lightning Kid to have children of his own, it would fall to Shark Boy have heirs to the throne and transform the King and Queen into grandparents.

It was too far away to worry about, and the King had learned not to have expectations, as nothing in life was written or promised, and still he worried about putting undue pressure on Shark Boy.  Yet as he thought about the joy that parenthood had brought the Queen and him, he could hope that he would be able to show that joy over the course of Shark Boy`s life, and he knew that whatever choices he would make for his own life, he would understand that having family, caring for and loving family was both a gift and a privilege.   The King realized that Shark Boy`s  good heart would always be his greatest strength and that he would always cherish family.