Best Christmas Present Ever

Having a disabled sibling is a lot like having a kid. You worry when they are going someplace new for the first time. You freak out when they move into their first apartment. And you have to help them buy your own Christmas presents and then pretend to be surprised on Christmas Day.

For Christmas 2008, I wanted Kevin to be more involved in his Christmas shopping, plus he enjoys going out. A big new shopping center with a massive Target had just been built up the street from Kevin's apartment, so one afternoon before Christmas, I headed out there, and we walked up to do our shopping.

I told him that he was responsible for choosing my presents himself this year, and he agreed that he could do that. Not that I wasn't going to give him a bit of guidance.

I needed a new wallet, so we went over to the accessories. We looked at the wallets and showed him the kinds I liked, and we talked about the colors and other things that he needed to look at when he picked one. He wanted to think about it, so we continued around the store looking.

He needed to buy gift cards for our teenaged cousins, and there was a nice display that was easily reachable from his wheelchair so we stopped to look.

Laura: So you need to pick out 3 cards for the kids.
Kevin: Alright, alright, alright, let me see. (Big pause while he looks the cards over.) Let's do the dog for Sean. And...the snowman for Jenna. And, let's see...the tree for Greggy.
Laura: Ok, great choices!

Now, you would have thought he had just picked out the most amazing, expensive present that anyone would ever want, he was so pleased with himself. When Kevin gets excited, he sort of pumps his arms up and down, his legs kick in and out, and he lifts himself off of his seat a bit, and he lets out a sort of a squeal with a really big grin on his face. He was doing that now.

So we continued on in our shopping, stopping occasionally for me to show him something I was interested in. We got to the hair dryers. I looked at a few -- I really needed a new one and they were in his budget. He decided that was one of the things he was going to get me. So I showed him the two that he could choose from and went around the corner so he could pick and put it in the cart in "secret."

Then he decided he wanted to go back to the wallets. So I had him lead the way, to make sure he didn't get lost in the store, and he looked at those wallets very carefully, and picked them up and opened them, to make sure he picked the best one. He made his choice and put it in the cart.

Then we had to get gift bags. He picked out the ones he wanted and we went ahead to check out. He had to unload the cart so I would handle my presents too much, and we headed back to his house with all of the goodies.

I put my presents and the bags and tissue in a separate bag and told Kevin to bring it to our dad's house on Christmas Eve, and someone there could help him wrap them. I draw the line at wrapping and then opening my own presents.

A few days later, when I arrived to pick Kevin up on Christmas Eve day to go down to Dad's, he was all packed and ready to go, and there was a gift bag sitting in his hallway when I arrived.

Laura: What's the bag in the hallway for?
Kevin: It is your Christmas presents.
Laura: Why aren't they in the Target bag I put them in? (Realization dawns on me and I look closer at the bag.) Did YOU wrap my presents all by yourself?
Kevin: Yup! But there wasn't a card on the little bag, so I just wrote your name on it.

I almost burst into tears.

He had rolled the wallet in tissue before putting in the little bag, labeled the little bag, put the hair dryer in the bigger bag with a piece of tissue over it, and then had set the little bag in the bigger bag. And he used the Santa hat card and labeled it on the bigger bag: "To Laura From KW."

Now, this may not seem like a lot to some people, but this was huge for Kevin. He doesn't write much without prompting. He can only use one hand to do all of this, and the little card attached to the one bag didn't have a lot of space on it, so he really had to control his writing to fit everything on it.

Laura: You wrapped my presents? All by yourself? That is just the best present ever!
Kevin: (Excited, squealy noises and gestures)

I gave him the biggest hug! And I praised him about it for the whole ride down to Orange County. I said to him over and over:

Laura: I just can't believe you did that all on your own. That just makes me so happy.

But one of these times he got really quiet:

Laura: What's wrong?
Kevin: (Big pause) Did I spell "from" right?