A REAL, SUPER, HUMAN

By Jill Miller Zimon

He’s been called a motard - a combination of moron and retard.

He’s had a bathroom door shoved open while inside.

In gym class, he’s the last one chosen for every team.

And, with a poker face, my oldest child tells me to accept that he’s a geek.

But every morning, from September through June, he wakes up at 6:30 with few groans albeit with his pillow clasped around his head to shut out the alarm clock.

When I knock, then open his door, he’s upright on the bed, clutching a squishy pillow (not intended for sleeping, but rather for squashing) to his waist, crushing it down into his lap with the weight of his elbows.

He doesn’t pretend he’s sick. He doesn’t beg to stay home. He doesn’t hide under his comforter.

At nearly 12 years old, he’s too big for that anyway.

“Just checking,” I say. “Be down in 10 minutes, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

The drum pounding sound of his footsteps tells me that he’s on his way down the stairs. He sleepwalks to the kitchen table, the sun still below the horizon.

“I made fresh corn muffins.” My voice upticks as though I’m asking a question, rather than introducing a warm breakfast with the flair of a game show model revealing prizes.

“Yeah, okay.” He doesn’t express desire the way 1950s-era sons in plaid, pressed shirts and loafers might, but that he’s here at all seems to be enough.

In my mind, I’m working to prop him up. But the truth is, his fortitude fuels me.

My son spoke before he was one, dialogued in full sentences by 15 months and, at his two year old check-up, the pediatrician asked us, “Do you have any idea how unusual he is?”

We didn’t.

But over the years the anecdotal evidence grew to support everyone’s suspicion that this child was beyond bright. Then, in 2003, we learned that he is in the upper end of the profoundly gifted spectrum. The psychologist who tested my son told me that kids like ours were one in 250,000.

“When do you think he’ll find kids he can relate to?” I asked.

“When he goes to MIT.” My son had just turned 10.

Some parents might see stars, straight As and Stanford after hearing this response. But my eyes glazed over as I clasped an open hand to my mouth in a classic It’s All Clear To Me now posture.

More than explain his intellect, this blessing-slash-curse confirmed my belief that my son speaks a different language and sees the world through different lenses than same-aged peers.

In third grade, he came home in tears after his gym class teammates blamed him for their loss in a game of crab walking. He’d stopped in the middle of the contest because the black pavement was hot. He decided to walk back to his team, after which the teacher disqualified them.

“Mom, the pavement was, like, over 100 degrees. That’s just not fair to us.” Unfortunately, he let his not so wrong logic prevail at a time when everyone else wanted to win.

In fourth grade, classmates verbally abused him for knowing nothing about sports. Yet, when the teacher and I spoke with the children to better understand what was going on, they described a curious envy for the very one they were victimizing.

“Do you know that I’ll never be able to read like him? My parents would die if I could read like that.”

And, during one winter break when he was nine, he broke down on the carpet near my desk, inconsolable over his lack of friends at school.

“Why do you think you don’t have friends in school?” I asked this because he’s maintained several friendships outside of school.

“Because I read, I’m fat and I like books.” Envision a child slouched and soaking in his sobs.

“Well, what do you think you’d have to do to get those kids to be your friends?”

“Stop reading, play sports and be mean to girls.” Imagine arms and hands flapping up and down from exasperation.

“Do you really want to do any of those things? Or give up what you like? Do you want to be friends with kids who don’t like what you like?”

“No!” he said. And then, through the short breaths caused by crying so hard, complete with arms still slapping, he said, “I love reading. I love books. But I hate not having any friends.”

Sigh. Big, motherly sigh.

But, despite his refusal to conform - and thereby invite teasing, he likewise clings to certain beliefs about right and wrong. In third grade, with nothing more than words, he forced a recalcitrant bully to stop verbally abusing a classmate during a field trip to a play.

And in fifth grade, after being terrorized for an entire semester during which the school’s methods to curb the perpetrators’ behavior failed repeatedly, he convinced four administrators - an assistant principal, the school psychologist, the school guidance counselor and the district coordinator for gifted services - to let him confront the boys directly.

On the day of the intervention, the assistant principal accompanied the boys to the office and overheard the following exchange, which she loves to describe to others.

“It’s your fault that we have to do this,” said the main bully, as he strutted through the hall.

“No. It’s your behavior,” my son said, equally sure of himself.

These days, it seems to be in style to complain about the superhuman nature needed to be a mom, particularly to a child like my son. But every morning, when I see him clutch that tension pillow to his chest and rise without complaint for another school day, I know I’m watching a real, super, human.