Wednesday, May 4, 2016

The Lion King of Ventnor!

A couple of days ago I received an email from Mo’s care staff about an ‘unfortunate’ incident that happened over the weekend in Ventnor, the tiny coastal town on the Isle of Wight where Mo goes to school.  Mo has now earned ‘Level 2’ independence meaning that he can go into town by himself unaccompanied or shadowed by his care staff. This feat was highly anticipated over the past year and once surmounted was hailed as a huge stepping stone, a feather in Mo’s cap up until two days ago when it was threatened by a couple of hooligans who happened to be on High Street Ventnor the same time as Mo.

Mo had gone shopping for his toiletries to Tesco and in his words “mama there were these hooligans on the street; one was riding a motorbike and tried to hit the other on his face. They were making a lot of noise and then one of them called me a midget”. Apprehensively I asked Mo “what did you do, were you scared?” to which he replied, yes I was scared but I went into Tesco, bought my body soap and when I came out they were still there but I just walked back to school”. Infuriated at the goons behaviour and hurt for my son I asked Mo whether he would like to be shadowed again into town. Quite honestly I was hoping he would say exactly what he did which was, “ Not at all!” Suddenly the hooligans became transformed into pathetic little mice and my Mo became the lion king of Ventnor!

The point of sharing the above anecdote is this: when you raise your children to be proud, self- respecting individuals mindful of their weaknesses and cognizant of their strengths, you are in fact empowering them with the confidence that you have passed onto them as loving and validating parents. Despite Mo’s enormous challenges, he has the spirit of an angel and the will of a fighter. Had he been sidelined, pitied and underestimated would he have coped so well with the aforementioned event? By all measures he should at least have been somewhat shaken! But when I spoke to Mo the day after the incident it was as if he didn’t give a hoot. In fact I was told by his staff that he had been singing through the weekend. Bravo Mo, keep on believing in yourself, we are with you!


                        “It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.” 
                         ― 
J.R.R. Tolkien

1 comment:

  1. bravo mo and bravo huma for giving this strengrh to him

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