A Life Beyond Reason

Chris Gabbard, an associate professor of English at the University of North Florida, has published an essay on the evolution of his perspectives regarding his severely handicapped son, August. Professor Gabbard has much to teach us about the depth of parental commitment and how caring for a special needs child can enhance the outlook of the caretaker as well.

Gabbard writes: “To admit how August has changed me is not to assert that what he has given me compensates for what he, my wife, my daughter, and I have lost on account of the poor decisions made by the hospital where he was born. There is no getting back what we have lost. Compensation is just a trope, and belief in compensation is as superstitious as belief in the medieval notion of correspondences. Besides, nothing can compensate for what all of us have had to give up.

“That is not to deny that August, along with my daughter and my wife, is the most amazing and wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, for he has allowed me an additional opportunity to profoundly love another human being.”

Professor Gabbard’s essay can be accessed in its entirety here. It will also appear in Papa, PhD: Essays on Fatherhood by Men in the Academy, published this month by Rutgers University Press.

Aidan's Way by Sam Crane (2004)

“Aidan's Way is an endlessly inspiring account of parental love and devotion, of the lessons of ancient eastern philosophy and of what it means, ultimately, to be human.

This life we're given comes in its own season and then follows its vanishing away. If you're at ease in your season, if you can dwell in its vanishing, joy and sorrow never touch you. This is what the ancients called getting free.

...Aidan's crisis had liberated me in a way. We had come close to death, had looked over the edge of the precipice, and then moved back. He would die at some point, perhaps young, maybe very young. He was profoundly disabled, even more so than he had been before. But his near-death had altered my vision. The length of his life or the physical particulars of his life were not as important as the mere fact of his life itself. He was following along in his own season, moving on the currents of the Way....

Sam Crane, a professor of Asian Studies, has to cope with more than he ever imagined when his son Aidan is born with severe disabilities. Turning to the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu -- he comes to understand Aidan. Gradually, we become aware of Aidan's profound impact on others, including his father, his family and the larger community.”

Aidan's Way can be found at Abebooks.com