I don’t blame the family for loving them-the human capacity for love is mysterious but one of the good things about us.
However, Gwen missed the love with Dignity part. I’ve written about another YouTube parent who also has a kid with microcephaly. She shows how she does feeds, washes hair, does daily care, because she believes this may help another family in this circumstance. She clearly loves her child, who just seems a tick above the Hartleys in awareness but has a body that is not as destroyed.
Mostly, this mother giver her daughter dignity. She doesn’t talk about the things the kid would be embarrassed about if she could think: no poop explosions, no vomiting, none of that. I’m sure it happens but who doesn’t know that you just clean it up? She gives her daughter dignity. She’s not playing bowling with her, not pretending she’s going to change the world. She’s the kind of mother Gwen should have been if she wasn’t a narc.
This lady loves her kid and will grieve when she’s gone, as Gwen has. I’m sure there is some relief too, as there is when you believe somebody is suffering. But I don’t think Gwen sees Lola and her vomiting, shitting, stinking, seizing blank self and thinks suffering, and she’s wrong. I’m not sure the other girl is suffering-she’s in feeds, goes to the hospital regularly, has comfort care. But Lola? Whether her brain has any awareness, we can all see it’s time.
What there is to love, I don’t know, thankfully. But people can love all sorts of broken things. It’s the way you show that love that counts. Gwen blew it.
Gwen has used the girls for asspats, attention, to be a martyr mom. She has accepted expensive items that would never help the girls. Unlike this mom, who really just is hoping to help other mothers.
And that’s the difference. Lola snd Claire have never been afforded dignity.
