How Green Becomes Wood

Daizi inhaled, squeezing the pillow a little bit more tightly to her chest, "Regret, I think. I was his disabled, unattractive daughter, whose birth meant the death of his beautiful wife, so I wasn't really... Someone he cared to show off, much. Who did she die for? And my older brother was tall and handsome and kind--he loved me so much, and he never held any of it against me... He was very protective.--but he died young, so then all he had was me, and because he still didn't... value me, I guess, he sent me away, which worked out for me in the end. When he got sick, we almost made it work. Because he came very close to death, and all of his doctors called his recovery miraculous, and I was doing the things that he had wanted me to do all along... Then I chose a different path..." She chewed on her bottom lip for a few moments, her eyebrows furrowed, "My father got old. And I think he saw, for all of his siblings, and cousins, and nieces and nephews, I was the one he really had. So he changed his tune. He would have preferred if my brother had lived instead of me, although I don't think he'd ever admit it, but deep down he always loved me, and deep down he always loved my mom, because he never remarried, and I'm who he has left. Now he has Ivy, too. And she's like me, but not in the ways he took issue with when I was small."
 
"That sucks," Xander frowned. "There's a hell of a lot more to you than just what you look like and what parts do or don't work. You don't look that bad. Seriously, not bad enough to get abandoned like a runty puppy. If either of you are blind, it's him for not seeing what he had all along. It's not fair that you had to shove it in his face for him to see that."
 
"It's hard..." She said slowly, running her thumb nail along her middle finger of her opposite hand, "When you're about to have a child, you put so many of your expectations and hopes and dreams onto that child... Everybody does, and for some parents, it's really intense, they plan out what their child's job will be, where they'll live, the sort of person they'll marry... And some people just imagine them graduating from high school, or learning how to ride a bike, but every body puts some aspiration onto their children, everybody dreams about who they will grow up to be... And when you have a disabled child, everything you dreamed about for them is gone. Or altered, at least. I think, by now, I've done just about everything my father dreamt I would do, in my own way. I got married, I have children, I earned a degree--I earned more than I think he wanted me to earn--but when I was a child, nobody... There was no way to know I'd be this successful. But what they did know was everything in my life would be much more difficult, and people love telling me how... brave I am, how strong... They say it must have made me so resilient. My whole life, I have been called brave, and strong, and resilient, and I don't even know if being blind made me those things, but I know if they did, I'd have preferred to be cowardly, weak, and easily damaged, because living like this makes everything more challenging."

She fell silent for a moment, her head tipped down, forgetting the point she had intended to get to. Then, raising it, she said, "When I was pregnant with Ivy, and it seemed more or less definite she was going to survive, I tried to research advice for a blind parent, and I ended up reading a lot of advice for parents of blind children, and it talked a lot about the grief in it. The pain in it. I read posts and posts of parents who hadn't stopped crying since learning their baby would never see. And my father was already grieving his wife. So, he did not do what he should have for me. And I can't do anything about that, now, and there was nothing I could do then, because I was just a child, who could not understand, and shouldn't have needed to." She swallowed hard, finding the conversation more than a little bit difficult, "But now he is trying, in his own way, to do better. And sometimes that is all we can hope for. My father always loved me, he just wasn't very good at it."
 
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Xander listened quietly as he sat with one foot up on the couch in front of him. He fiddled lightly with the hem of his pant leg. Every parent had aspirations for their kids? He wondered briefly what sort of aspirations Tara had had for them. It must be a lot different for a single mother without many prospects. He shook his head and returned his mind to the topic at hand.

"So, I guess like the professor is trying to be the dad he needed, you're trying to be the mom you needed, no matter if Ivy is so-called disabled or not," he said slowly.
 
Daizi inhaled softly, turning her face up towards the ceiling, "I suppose so. I guess you could say that. I just... I'm trying to be a good mom. To all of you. I never had a mom to learn from." Then, she exhaled, hugging the pillow close, "And it's not 'so-called.' I am disabled, I do have a disability. There's nothing wrong with saying so."
 
"Yeah, I know, but what I'm saying is just 'cause it's a disability doesn't mean you are, like, fully disabled," he tried to explain. "You can still function as a human being and do a lot of stuff. You don't have to sit around doing nothing all day and hoping you'll be spoon fed."
 
"Xander..." Daizi lightly chided, turning towards him, "People with greater support needs than me still function as human beings. I once knew someone whose daughter had seizures at three months old, and her daughter's brain never developed beyond three months old. For her daughter's whole life, she was able to do less than Ivy can now. If you put disabilities on a scale, that poor girl was more disabled than I am, and she did need to be spoon fed, literally, but... People having more severe disabilites than I do does not mean mine is not a big deal. It takes so much work for me to be able to live the life I lead, and sometimes it's frustrating. Often it's frustrating. I'm always... tethered, to someone, or something. If I am out in the world, I always need to walk with my cane, or hold onto Dark, or one of you, when I was younger I had a guide dog, I can't just... walk out into the world. Almost everything in my life requires modifications and we think about it with almost everything we buy and do. So, yes, I do not need help eating, but I need help with a lot. It's just less obvious, because I've got a system. And it's not... complimentary, to be told 'but you're basically normal, not like other disabled people,' because I am both normal and disabled. It's not productive, or kind, to differentiate people based on your own interpretation of what 'doing stuff' looks like. It's definitely unkind to say if you cannot function like how we expect an able-bodied neurotypical person to function, you are not functioning like a human."
 
"That's not what I was saying, not at all," Xander protested, bewildered and frustrated. "None of that... How did you get that? It's like you're only hearing what you think I'm saying. I'm trying to say." He stopped short and shook his head. He let his foot thump down to the floor. "Forget it. Never mind. I don't know how to say what I mean, and I'm tired of always saying the wrong thing around you. I'm tired of hurting your feelings because my mouth and my brain don't connect."
 
Daizi furrowed her brows, leaning back slightly, "I got that because of the words you said. And I know that is not what you meant to say, I know that you're trying to be supportive, maybe even complimentary, and I know that because I know you, but not everyone is going to give you that grace. All I know is you didn't intend what you said to be taken badly, and I can guess at your intentions, but I don't even fully understand what you wanted to express."
 
Xander hesitated, his mind scrambling to understand Daizi. He ripped his fingers through his hair in frustration. "That's the main problem, isn't it?" he finally said. "I just... I don't have the right words, and I want to say the right things, but when I try, my words are wrong, and you don't understand what I mean, and I don't know how to tell you." He dropped his hands into his lap and started pulling at his fingers in agitation. He struggled through his words, trying desperately to explain what he was feeling but frustrated by what he felt wasn't a good enough vocabulary. His words came out strained and halting, but determined. "I'm trying... I want to say... not that you're, I dunno, better off. I mean, I guess you kind of are because you can move around and stuff, but I don't mean you're, like, a better person. Someone who can't do stuff, whatever the stuff is or how much of it, they aren't a lesser human. That's not what I meant. I meant... that... someone who can't see, or can't talk, or can't walk, or whatever, they're not just... potatoes to get stuck in a cupboard. And I guess not being able to feed yourself is less functioning in a literal way, and I guess it'd be a lot harder to connect with someone like that than someone who just can't see. And... I'm not saying not seeing is easy. It's not. It's not easy at all, but you can still communicate with people better than most folks I know, and you can walk and use your hands and think and feel... And even if you couldn't do those things, it's not fair to think you're not a person, but you can do those things, so your dad shouldn't have treated you like a potato. You're not a potato. You can think and feel."

He stopped talking, eyes down, still pulling on his fingers. Had he gotten it right this time?
 
Daizi listened carefully, running her nails up and down the length of her arm. She wasn't scratching herself like Milo did, she wasn't digging in, she was just tracing lines up and down, "And I appreciate that. I wish my father had seen more in me than what I can't do. I still wish he did, because it's not easy knowing on a fundamental level, in ways there is nothing you can do to change, you are always going to be disappointing. I'm not..." She inhaled, and turned her face away, giving herself a moment before saying, "but do you understand why what you said initially was upsetting?"
 
"Not really," Xander admitted. "I don't mean to make you mad, I don't mean to use the wrong words, but I don't understand."

It wasn't that he didn't want to understand. He wanted to understand, but peopler were so confusing! Why couldn't people be plainer? Why couldn't he understand? Half the time, when talking to Alec later, Alec understood, and everyone else seemed to understand, so why couldn't he? Why couldn't he understand what made people angry? He seemed to have no problem when he wanted to make sure to hurt them first, but when he was trying to have a perfectly normal and even heartfelt conversation, he felt he was the blind person stumbling around in unfamiliar territory. Why couldn't he just get it? Get what words made people upset and why?
 
"When you tell someone they can function as a human being, it implies that they aren't, or at least are less, human." Daizi explained, turning back towards him, "I don't want to lecture you on historical precedent, but I don't think I need to. I know what's in your heart, but if you say things like that out in the world, not everyone will. How would you feel if someone else, someone you didn't know well told you, 'your mom can function as a human being'?" She asked him, giving him time to answer.
 
"Honestly?" Daizi asked, "At least to me, anytime someone compliments me on doing something any non-disabled person can do without incident, it never really feels nice. I'm an adult, other adults don't get praise for being able to go grocery shoppers or holding a job. I've never really appreciated the, 'you're blind, but!' compliments, except for the occasion specifically impressive feat. Like, it's difficult for any person to earn their PhD, I earned mine while blind, I don't mind when people complimented me on that. But for normal, everyday things? When people feel the need to compliment me on them just makes me feel othered, or like I'm a little kid again. And for big accomplishments, you can just compliment someone on the accomplishment without adding their disability as a modifier. It's like if people constantly made a point of saying you've done so well, for someone who was raised by a single mother. You're doing fine, for someone who had your upbringing." She shiftef on the couch, "If somebody else says something patronizing? Then you make them feel stupid for being patronizing," she laughed lightly, "Or you just ignore it."
 
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Xander frowned as he considered this. "I think I understand," he said slowly, "but... we just talked about how it's not easy to be blind, so... why isn't it a good thing to be congratulated for... overcoming isn't the right word. Working with the disability? I kind of want to be praised for going to the grocery store."
 
"Because part of the challenge of having a disability is dealing with people who don't see you as an adult. And when they see you get off the train and compliment you for it, it feels like they didn't think someone like you could have possibly done such a thing, that it's remarkable. I have to cope with it, I never get to stop coping with it, and I didn't choose it any more than I can choose to not have it. It's not easy, nothing about it is easy, but when I'm congratulated for completing a basic task, it's like the only thing people notice about me is that I'm different. I don't need to be congratulated, I just need to pick up some broccoli."
 
"I get it now," Xander said, truly understanding. "I never thought you weren't capable of doing stuff, ever, I just didn't know what you could do. Like not knowing if you could tell our voices apart. Sorry if I ever made out like I didn't think you couldn't handle yourself."
 
"You haven't, really. At least not for a long time," Daizi replied, keeping her legs folded up, "but I need you to understand these things because I don't want you to go out in the world, meet other people with disabilities, and unintentionally say something to hurt them without thinking how you might've. It's especially important for me to correct these things, because if I don't, because I can typically recognize what you're intending to say, then if you go out and repeat them, you might think, 'well, my mom's disabled, and she's not bothered by this, so it must be okay to say.' It'd just cause a bigger problem, down the line."
 
"Oh. I get it," Xander said, nodding soberly. "I don't like being a jerk, and it'd look real bad for you. I know that's not your point, but it would, and I don't want that."
 
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