What We Cannot See

A while ago I had to have a cyst removed on the back of my head. Besides me being fairly dramatic about making the phone call to schedule the procedure, the whole thing was not a big deal and the marble size bump was removed and my head stitched up with little fanfare. My long hair covered the wound and all was well. The doctor said I would have a small divot for a bit and I made the mistake of telling my kids. They were fascinated. Not by the procedure or my well-being of course, but that I could be walking around town with a "hole in my head" and, mostly, that no one knew.

I came home from a meeting and Elena, age 9, asked, "Well. How'd it go. Did you tell them?"

"No," I said. "Of course not."

She was horrified. “You just had the conference with a hole in your head and you didn't say anything?!"

"It didn't come up!" I said.

"Didn't you need to explain why you were cranky?!" She asked.

"No" I told her.

I reviewed the facts of my head and interacting with others, hoping that my kids would learn a lesson about treading gently with other people since we all may have hidden burdens or horrible headaches. I tried to be real chill and let the lesson emerge by itself, parable style.

"Oh I see," Guy said when I finished. "Your hole in your head is like Autism."

"No," I said impatiently. "No. Not at all."

"Well,” he insisted, "people can't see it right away. And it affects your life. "

"True," Elena agreed.

"Okay, but guys..."

I took a sharp detour onto a long side road with definitions and differences about neurodiversity, disabilities, injuries and mental and physical illness. Grief and trauma. Their eyes widened at the thought of all these quiet worlds.

"So which one is the hole in your head?" Guy asked.

"Well… I guess none of those," I admitted. "Random is a thing too."

They did not like this. I do not either. "The point —" I clarified my parable like Jesus never had to, "is that maybe we should just always assume people have hard or random stuff going on and be extra kind and gentle."

"Like I said," Guy said.

Elena nodded and referenced a classmate seriously "I think [so and so] may like have like a hole in her head."

"Or trouble at home..." I added.

"Or allergies," the other child volunteered.

We all paused to think about that. Their brains squinted into a new perspective.

"But we may never know," said Elena.

And then we thought about that too.