random thoughts

Last night I began reading a book about a boy whose face was horribly deformed.  Even after many surgeries to correct a cleft palate and other anomalies, his was a face that people gasped and looked away from.  When he was 10 his parents decided he should attend a regular school instead of being home schooled.  He resists this idea at first, but finally relents and begins 5th grade at a private school.

I've only read the first part of the book which is told through his voice.  It is heartbreaking.  Although his parents love him and his sister who is four years older protects him, he is alone in his battle to fit in.

I know a little bit about this subject.  I too was born with a cleft palate.  Although I was not facially deformed I did not have a soft palate and my speach was very nasal until I was about 12 or 13 and I was fitted with a speech appliance.  Up until that time I had speech therapy, two surgeries to try to close the hole in the roof of my mouth and stretch the tissue to push back the palate.  The surgeries were only partially successful.  So until I was free of the braces on my teeth,  I sounded like I was talking through my nose.  I remember many days walking home from school in tears.  All I wanted was to be able to sound like everyone else.

I got the speech appliance the summer between my sixth and seventh grade.  Funny, I don't remember anyone saying, hey you sound great.  But I did. I was accepted.  I sounded like everyone else.  I was in the school plays, did an original monolog for class night, and joined as many extracurricular activities as I could.  But although I seemed to fit in, there was still inside me that little girl who was "different".  Sad thing, sometimes she's still there.