An Uplifting Story about Helping Your Child
I was running errands today and got a text from our son, a high school senior, saying that a neighbor's wind chimes are triggering his misophonia. Could I please ask the neighbors to take down the wind chimes? Neighbors we don't know, across the alley.
My son is already wearing noise-generating hearing aids and, when he's home, spends 99.99% of his time in his nearly sound-proof bedroom.
My reaction while reading this text? Immediately drive back and home and rip down those wind chimes.
Which I didn't do, but here's what I did do when I got home.
I knocked on the door and told the woman who answered the truth. I gave my ‘misophonia elevator speech,’ explaining what misophonia is and that the wind chimes were triggering for my son. I asked if she would "mind terribly" taking them down? I also offered to buy the wind chimes and brought cash.
The poor woman appeared utterly confused. Because of the pandemic, we were both wearing masks, so she couldn't "read" this stranger and she was all “me-sew-phone-e-uh what?” But she was instantly and entirely kind in her confusion. She apologized and said she would take the wind chimes down immediately, never to be seen again. No, no, she didn’t want my money.
What she wanted was to stop a child’s suffering, no further questions needed.
I live up a big hill, half a block walk from her house. The wind chimes were gone when I got home.
My misophic son thanked me and thanked me [via texts] and suggested we buy her a gift and make her cookies. (Of course, that would be me, the mom, doing these things but that's another story; nice offer, son).
I am dropping off a small plant tomorrow and a card.
But the whole thing encapsulated so much of what it's like to be a parent of a child with misophonia. Did I want to ask a complete stranger to do something with her own property in her own backyard? No. Pretty much a horrifying and invasive ask, really.
But the thought of my son—triggered all the time in his own room, never escaping that sound—also meant this: those wind chimes were going to come down. No matter what.
This 15-minute incident reminded me of 504 plans at school and the one-million-and-twenty- thousand ways in which we advocate for our children, balance their needs with the rights/needs/feelings of others, and do things we don't want to do to help our children.
This incident reminded me of something else too: what a beautiful gift this moment provided; this kindness from a stranger without debate or really any question. It made clear how much we all need that, each of us.
Image:
Artist Unknown. Family Portrait. ca. 1915. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Public domain.