Making order
Yesterday, Daniel (and all his classmates and a couple of other adults) witnessed the music teacher collapse in a grand mal seizure. A terrible and terrifying thing for everyone, not least for the teacher who is recovering in hospital (no word yet on why it happened). Daniel ran screaming into the hallway and took an hour to calm down. He wanted to know why it happened, wanted to blame something, someone for what happened. It made no sense to him and therefore he could not cope with it.
Of course it doesn’t make sense. That out of the blue, a woman’s electro-nervous whatever system can simply seize up. That my mother can’t remember my cousin and oldest friend. That Bush is president. The world is not orderly. But it is so hard to cope with that, especially when you’re Daniel.
This morning in the car he spent the half-hour drive to school working out how long it would take him to count to a million. Or a billion. Or a quadrillion. Or a thousand. If you counted one number a second. One number every two seconds. If you stopped counting for meals and bed-time. If you didn’t count on leap days. If you did count on leap days. If you counted by 100s. By 1000s.
Here at least, he found a moment of order.
I of course, nearly lost my mind as he entertained the idea of counting to a million over the next month.
I love you…and your family, you are one very special lady with a fantastic outlook on your world, stay great, and keep that boy great too. My youngest used to record the weather…looking for a pattern. Fantastic.
If y’all have not found it yet, check out the DVDs by the Teaching Company called “The Joy of Thinking”–often available in libraries or at least through interlibrary loan. It is absolutely fantastic and starts off with a discussion of counting and time. Very cool. From what we’ve heard and seen about Daniel, I would think he would love the entire set if lectures.
(Not all of the Teaching Company lectures are like this one.)
Hey! The videotapes are in the Cumberland library….
poor sweet Daniel, and his mama. (((hugs)))
Oh, how terrifying for Daniel. Glad he found some “order” (although I am chuckling a bit as I imagine his monologue on the subject…)
I too, was terrified the first time I witnessed someone having a Grand Mal siezure.
Poor Daniel. I hope he is ok now.
checking back in to see if your son has had some better days since the 25th…
Terrifying experience for an adult not to mind a child.
Hope he’s counting quietly and you are managing to take your head somewhere else while he’s doing it.