Eye of the Storm

My son Nick had a big day recently — he turned 13. For any kid, this is a significant turning point. The physical sprouting and expanding that overtake your body at this age are reflected in your behaviour. Even the nicest 13-year-olds get that chip on their shoulders and find some way to inform the world that they will not easily agree to anything any more. In one sense, it is the “Terrible Twos” 11 years later. In another, it is a personal Declaration of Independence.

So Nick is there. And having reached this important plateau of maturity, the next goal is to get him to stop yanking out his right eye and losing it.

I don’t think we will be successful. Nick has a host of conditions that mean he is totally dependent on others for his life. As a result, he carries the label “profoundly mentally and physically challenged.” He can’t do much on his own. But he can grab things and throw them.

His right eye, which is prosthetic and easily taken out, is one of his favourite items to grab. And I’m pretty sure that this is his way of telling society that he is 13 and, like all the other kids turning into young adults, ready to raise hell.

It’s dangerous, this protest he has launched. When he started doing this a few months ago, we were sure he had swallowed the eye. His parents and the caregivers at his group home panicked. “This can’t be healthy,” we all said. Still, an x-ray showed there was no eye in his stomach. God knows where he tossed it — it’s never turned up anywhere.

Off he went to the people who make eyes. True artists, these folks. The artificial eye looks so real that when Nick pulls it out and drops it on his chest, the first person to see it usually has symptoms of a mild heart attack. They made a new one and it was put back into his eye socket. That one disappeared, too.

More panic, searching, x-rays. Nothing found. The eye people are making another new one — at $800 a pop.

In the meantime, a temporary, clear eye was inserted. Nick promptly pulled it out and dropped it in the group home’s swimming pool.

All of this is sending a variety of adults into a state of bewilderment. You can’t tell Nick not to pull his eye out. Well, you can, and we do, but he couldn’t care less. There are all sorts of professionals — PhDs, MDs, MSWs, RNs and WPs (Worried Parents) scratching their heads over this one, with no solution in sight. We’re at Nicky’s mercy. And I think he’s thrilled.

So am I.

Every kid should have the chance to test the patience of authority figures who set the rules. When I turned 13 in 1971, I began a career in ticking off my parents. First there was a party where a multitude of beers found their way into — and out of — my stomach.

Then came a parade of rock stars. Jim Morrison was a particularly sharp needle in my father’s notion of what’s right and what’s not as he wailed Light My Fire clad in a black leather jacket on the Ed Sullivan Show. Then there was my long hair, my bristling backtalk, my capital-A attitude. And when John Lennon sang “Mother Superior jumps the gun” and Paul McCartney yelled, “Lady Madonna, baby at your breast” through the walls of my room, our Catholic household was transformed into a suburban debating club where neither side would win, or give up. And on it went.

When Nick was born in 1986, we had one day before his many challenges would come to light. In those 24 hours, I smiled broadly as I imagined the time when Nick would break into his version of Things I’ll Do To Piss Off My Old Man. I was so eager for him to become the lanky goof with the constant sneer and mouthful of lies: “Dad, I don’t know how I got those demerit points. The government must have me mixed up with someone else,” “Mum, I have no idea where those (insert any item a teenager is not supposed to have) came from.”

On Sept. 18, 1986, however, the doctors said that Nick had no right eye and a lot of other things that would mean he wouldn’t have a “normal” life. He would be a “good boy” forever.

But the human spirit is powerful. It can leap up and take charge just when you think every possibility is out of reach. Nick can’t walk, talk or feed himself. But, as I said earlier, he’s got two good hands and the ability to grab stuff.

And he’s 13.

And he’s driving us all nuts, grabbing that eye and losing it.

And I’m happier than I could have ever imagined.

Go for it, Nick.