I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing black and white in life; there are always shades of gray and there's never a way to truly know what drives another person. Still, I wept when I read this Vanity Fair account of playwright Arthur Miller's son, Daniel Miller, who was institutionalized right after birth. Institutionalized because he had Down syndrome.
My son Eric has Down syndrome.
Before you go all boo-hoo and assume I'm playing the "how could he do such a terrible thing!" card, remember my first sentence there, above.
Only someone who has a child with a disability knows what it feels to have one, and truly, I only know what it feels like to have MY child-with-a-disability. If you have one, I can't assume I know what that's like for you.
And I can't judge you, or Arthur Miller, for actions you might take as a result. I can't. This is what I wrote in comment about the situation:
"Everyone has their own tolerance for what they perceive as pain, or
joy, or simply Life. I cannot, any longer, be judgmental of the actions
of others unless I hold myself up to a similar painful and honest
viewing (and even that gives me no real right for judgment, for who can
truly know what’s in another’s heart and soul?). Nor do I, on the other
hand, necessarily condone actions I think I will never make.
Some things I simply must offer up as those that are part of the mysteries of life and being human."
I wrote this because I know the pain of loss that accompanies such a birth, a birth of joyous expectation that suddenly lands you on another planet. During my third pregnancy I dreamed often, nightmares, about my daughter being born with Down syndrome. Ironically, it wasn't her but her little brother who arrived with the 23rd chromosome.
Although I love him, I love him, I love him, there's also some ambivalence there. And his father refused to even speak of Eric's Down syndrome until he was about a year old. I could tell no one, had no one to grieve to. No matter the gifts that arrive with a child who is something other than what you expected, and no matter how enthusiastically you embrace those gifts, there is still a loss to grieve, a loss of the child you thought you were going to have. It's an ache that, frankly, I don't know will ever go away.
So please, if you can, don't judge Arthur Miller for his choices. Believe me, he probably lived out his hell in his own way. I can't judge him, just as I can't judge those wonderful parents who unthinkingly take all sorts of needful children into their hearts without question and fully embrace them for all that they are, instead of what they are not. So maybe I can't be those parents, and maybe Arthur Miller saw something that brought so much fear into his heart that he was paralyzed of it and did what he could to put the fear from him, the fear that, to him, manifested as a little baby boy. A baby boy who grew in spite of not knowing his father and became the warm loving human he always meant to be.
I don't judge Arthur Miller, nor do I condone him, for his actions surrounding his son Daniel. All I can do is simply offer them up as something that will remain to me a mystery, something that is not for me to know.
Yes, it's sad and it's awful that Daniel Miller lived so much of his life in what sounds like horrible conditions. It's sad that he didn't know his parents. It's sad that his parents didn't get to know what a wonderful person it sounds like he is. It's sad that so many kids with disabilities have, throughout history, been pushed aside and marginalized. There are so many sad things in life, but truly, I am thinking that this one turned out happily after all: Daniel Miller is healthy and happy. Does life get better than that? Maybe he can be a symbol, then, of a society which seems to be changing into one of acceptance.
I can only hope so, and for my part I will try to begin in my own home, for that's all I can do, really.
