Luke

I realized the other day that while this blog is about Jake, his brother Luke has been affected by all of this too and in a pretty big way. This past week Luke had his monthly pack meeting for cub scouts. Each month a different core value of scouts is covered, March was Compassion. They usually do an activity that coincides with the trait and Luke was asked by his cubmaster if he would be willing to talk to the other scouts about he helps Jake cope and their relationship. We told Luke about it and let him make the decision. He and I went on a long walk later that night and a lot of stuff came out about Jake.

The other person who would speaking at the meeting was a mom who's son has disabilities and since they would both be speaking, Luke connected her son and Jake together and said to me "But Mom, Jake isn't disabled." It isn't a label we've really used or think about, a lot of that is because we have been more focused on his recovery and progress. And to be honest, it's a tough label to place on your child. After I thought about it for a minute, I said to him "Jake had a really bad stroke that left him unable to use parts of his body the same as you do, so technically right now he does have a disability." He then asked me if Jake would be at the meeting because he was afraid if Jake heard Luke say he was disabled it would hurt his feelings. (Jake wasn't going.) He also seemed concerned that other people would think of Jake as disabled. I told him the reason they asked him to speak was to share about what he does to help Jake and how some things have changed. It was more about awareness so if one of the other scouts encountered someone "different" they might stop, think, and be more compassionate.

He thought about it a little longer and decided he would like to do it. I told him he could say and share whatever he was comfortable with. I was very antsy waiting for he and Todd to get home from the meeting to hear how things went. When he got home he came and whispered to me that he almost cried talking about Jake and had to take some deep breaths. After they went to bed, Todd and I talked about it and he said Luke did a really good job. We were really proud of him being willing to get up in front of a pretty big group of kids and adults and share some really personal stuff. He has grown up so much the past few years and sometimes seems far wiser than ten. He really is an amazing kid and has definitely got the compassion character trait nailed down.

Free Weekend

Jake definitely benefited from a weekend free from appointments. The boys had a long weekend off from school, so we were able to schedule things so he didn't have stretching or acupuncture on Saturday. Instead he got to hang out with his good friend on Saturday and outside with Luke and some of the neighbors most of Sunday. It was so nice to see him doing normal kid stuff and having fun. It seems like so much of his life is appointments, homework, therapies, he doesn't have a lot of time or energy left to just be a kid.

We did have a small incident today with one of the neighbors, but in a strange way, ended up being a sign of progress. Both our boys have always been very protective of each other and ready to come to the other's defense when they feel their brother has been wronged. There have been a few instances in the past year and a half where Luke has come to Jake's defense, but there hasn't really been a situation where Jake had a opportunity to stand up for Luke like he would have before his stroke. The majority of the time, there is no real confrontation with someone, it takes place instead with Todd and I as part of the conversation of what happened. Luke would get very upset about something that happened to Jake and talk about wanting to confront that person and what he would say. I've seen both of them over the years get very emotional wanting to right a wrong.

Today, the roles were reversed. I won't go into details with what happened, but Luke realized after the kids left that something of his got damaged (by accident), and he wasn't too happy about it. He was really upset and Jake stood up and said in a rather stern voice "I'm going to go talk to _____!" We stopped him from going outside to confront the other child, but it was so cool to see him playing the role of big brother again to Luke. Ever since his stroke, Jake has been more passive and in a lot of ways the boys have reserved roles. Luke is more the big brother that Jake relies on for things. Jake could see Luke was hurting and got mad on his behalf. Empathy and reading other people's feeling is another trait that was affected by Jake's stroke and in a weird way, it was nice to see him upset on Luke's behalf and feeling bad for his brother.

Strange as it is, it was great progress and nice to see.