Thank You For Sharing A Wonderful Day

If you have lived with stuttering or another chronic difference, then you know the ups and downs, the oscillations between “good” and “bad” days, whatever your measure of such may be. There is a toll it takes, and you either submit to its demands or you build specific defenses—coping mechanisms—to withstand at least some of it to live your normal version of daily life. 

In heightened stretches of the journey such as the current malaise I’m weathering, the toll has made it hard to feel the absolute joy our son brings into my life. 

I cannot overstate the mental, emotional, and physical toll that is extracted during this period of my struggled stuttering pattern and holding space for our son. In each moment with or without him, I’m distracted, ready to snap my attention to his voice or second guess the words I’m going to say myself, which naturally keeps my defenses firing in, through, and between the many interactions of my days. Eventually, it becomes a burdensome weight to carry, a heaviness that feels as though I’m wrapped in a pulsating halo enveloping my whole body like the drowsiness of a springtime sinus headache. 

Weekdays are manageable because the routines force me through from one responsibility to the next—work, school pickup, dinner, our son’s bedtime, and crash. But, between school pickup and his bedtime, there are these moments with him that are priceless. “Daddy, put on my favorite song!” From late November until March, we listened to WHAM’s Last Christmas in the car on repeat until we got home. On Thursday nights, he typically helps me make cheeseburgers as he dons a chef’s hat and oversized apron. And of late, he has become an incredible, imaginative storyteller, “Daddy, did you know we saw a dead squirrel today at school, and then a bald eagle swooped down and ate it!” 

Come Friday, I’m exhausted and exasperated from the week with little left to give. Saturday mornings are usually when we play or do a fun activity. I find that beginning from this state of depleted presence further inhibits our rainy-day worm hunts, sometimes miles-long big wheel rides, or trips to see his favorite farm animals. I can be short, quick-to-temper, and often fail to see the hilarity in his innocence. 

Much like the processing of memories and experiences of my own childhood, the toll is blurring my ability to fully experience my time with him, an overwhelming majority of which I should experience as priceless. There are days where I’ll get him up in the morning and read to him before bed where we spend every minute together, and one moment triggered by my spiraling inner wince to his stutter relegates such a wonderful day to a tailspin of descending emotions, feelings, and thoughts until I go to sleep. 

One Saturday, we had spent the entire day together and I had managed to keep up with his boundless four-year-old energy to have an all-around great day. We ended the evening with pizza, and we read some of his favorite books before bed. He likes to read the same books over and over again, to the point of memorizing the words from usually my wife’s voice reading to him. So, he repeats back full sentences exactly as they appear on the pages. 

If you have a toddler, then you might be familiar with the “Good Night” series, such as “Good Night Whales” or “Good Night Lake,” and so on. The very last page in each of the books has the same line— “Thank you for sharing a wonderful day.” Before I could say it this time, he said it himself but stopped before he got to “day.” And he waited and tried again. On the third try he started the “D” but stopped. He didn’t want to say it. It struck me immediately what he was doing. My thoughts raced as I waited to see what he was going to do. He substituted another word that I don’t recall and closed the book as if nothing happened. It ruined the whole day for me even though it seemingly had no impact on him. 

I thought about that moment for days afterward, and suddenly I could pick out his word substitution with the precision of the bald eagle spotting the squirrel. And slowly, triggers like these keep accumulating to imprison me in this phase of living his stutter instead of the unquestionable joy that we share, in all our time together.