I found this Feral Pigeon above, intensely looking back while staying on a cable !
That prompted me to look back. During the last three and half years, ever since someone, whom I knew me for thirty years or so, told me, 'your golden years of professional life are over and it is time for you to retire. There are others who would carry on the work that you are involved in'!
That was the time when fewer families sought to visit for consultations. I thought that to be true and prepared myself to step down from my responsibility at work. Since then the number of children seeking consultations have increased almost four fold. I feel surprised and humbled that the recent years have been different and more fulfilling! It is from that situation of much encouragement, that I prepare myself now to leave my present professional responsibility!
While looking back what do I see! The privilege of having been associated with professionals who defined the contours and content of the child development path for developmentally challenged children. What was amorphous has become distinct and defining in terms of the parent involved developmental planning for children, who have been developmentally challenged! During the last eleven years, it looks as though, I have been lifted to a new level of perceiving and engaging the Neuro-developmental pathways, that children follow depending on the nature of the neuro-developmental insult they suffered.
The other outstanding experience was of knowing some parents and finding the abundance of self-giving they practice towards their children, which made their children catch up in their developmental process. When some children have not made progress inspite of the efforts of parents, I have observed the parents becoming even more loving and caring towards their child. I have encountered some extra-ordinary responses from parents of remaining available to their children, when their development got stalled or deranged even more! It is one thing to invest more, when the outcome is proportionately fulfilling. It is yet another thing to be giving more and more to children, when the giving is not yielding corresponding with the efforts. This encounter experiences with some families make be bow before them, who took the vocation of parenting to a new height of intimacy with thier child!
Looking back over the eleven years also meant, recalling the trustful support of Friends of ASHIRVAD, who from the start of a Child Development Centre at Chennai in 1983 have accompanied us with their gift of goodwill. The forty years of ASHIRVAD's initiatives at Chennai, Nagpur, Vellore, Pondicherry and Kolenchery resulted form the ardent and steadfast support of Friends of ASHIRVAD in India, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and some other places.
This poised position of the pigeon at the beginning of the day, was what I needed at that time! My thoughts were centred around the first step ahead, when it is time for me to move on from what I am currently engaged in!
The next step in Life, Living and Learning is at the threshold! How much I look forward to it is what determines the composure and comfort needed for this transition.
What befriended me during the walk after watching the pigeon above for a awhile, was the five transition times that Anna and I went through in the last forty years. Each of those transitions, was similar in nature with no clarity about the steps ahead except the first step.
The first step now is to attend to a few writing projects towards publishing them to share the experiences on Child Development of Neuro-developmsentally challenged children. Now the developmental sequences of such children are often spoken about, in comparison to the developmental sequences of developmentally competent children. Instead the developmentally challenged children have a different pathway and profile. They are not to be in the shadow of the developmentally competent children. They are not to be described as less or more able than the other children. They are differently able.
When I saw a child of three years with Central Motor disorder gives away the chocolate, his father brought him as it was past lunch time, to a child sitting next to him who was crying, I knew that he did it because he felt for his neighbour's need! He gave all that he had! To be in that orientation is normally difficult. But that child, who has difficulty to walk had become familiar with his own needs could feel the hunger of a child sitting next to him!
I wish I have an opportunity to be a story teller of such children, who are outstanding, even when they endure their difficulties
As I prepare to close my time shortly, at the work place where I am currently involved in, I share the flower above, with all those who received the efforts of Anna and myself to support developmentally challenged children during the last forty years!
Looking back and Moving forward are two experiences that all of us go through all the time.
This transition time in my life, corresponds with the preparation to welcome the seventy fifth year in this journey of my life!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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