If you are allergic to saccharine, you best stop reading right here. I'm violating my usual standards for my writing, in which I aim more for salt-and-vinegar than vanilla-and-spice.

Linda Keenan worked 7 years as a head writer/senior producer for various programs on CNN...read more

But I make an exception for the mom I observed the other day at the pool (I've changed the name of the pool to protect her privacy), who had taken her son out on a sweltering day.

By most measures, this boy of 10 or so would surely not be considered lucky. His disability was undeniable to anyone who looked his way. Few had the nerve to peer too closely. He was unable to speak, hunched over and twisted a bit, unable to move with any sort of economy. He was painfully thin, and I could imagine that getting him to swallow even one bite was a struggle for the boy's parents.

What made him lucky in my mind was the mom he got, who showed such exquisite patience in the face of monumental challenges. This mom also made me see up close, for the first time, how the parents of the severely disabled face extreme isolation from other parents.

I will freely admit that there are many things I assumed about this woman, and I didn't have any way to confirm them, without asking her directly, something I didn't want to do.

She looked very strong, and after an hour or so of watching her lift her boy in and out of the water, I had to believe that her son's needs were responsible for all that muscle. She was roughly 40 years old, and wearing well-worn college-wear, and I began to imagine her as a former professional.

Most of the women in this particular town are professionals or former professionals. This woman's career now looked to be in her arms, a gangly boy who couldn't talk, but could communicate the basics: discomfort, joy, and surely love.

It is not easy to bring any young child to a pool; the vigilance gets a bit wearing. And though this boy was about 10, she had to handle him and hold him up as you would a toddler. Not once over the afternoon did she ever betray the exhaustion she must feel. Mostly, she seemed intent on giving her son every young boy's due: a splash in the pool on a 90 degree day. And she achieved that.

But it must have been a lonely endeavor. No one talked to her. While everyone else was prattling on to each other, comparing kiddie milestones ("can Liam spell his name? Caitlin can't"), whining about the trivial ("Crocs, dangerous or not?"), no one tried to pull her into the conversation.

We can't even fathom what the milestones are for her, what she can realistically hope for her son's future, the fear she must have about what that future might hold when she isn't around to care for him.

I shouldn't say no one talked to her. I spoke to her for a moment because I talk to every one, like a crazy person, or a former professional bored out of her mind at the kiddie pool.

Her son started to grab toys and one thing that looked like a toy was my enormous plastic Big Gulp-sized iced-coffee. I joked to her, "that's the one thing he can't have. Not my coffee." And she laughed, and looked happy to share a joke.

Still, a friend once described me as being able to interview a paper bag (a nice way to say I'm a hare-brained chatterbox, I think). And even I was stumped on how to start up a proper back-and-forth conversation.

I'm trying to imagine what this mom's reaction would be to this piece and I'm guessing she would be angry, saying that all I saw was her son's disabilities, all I saw were the challenges he faces as opposed to the things he gives back to her family in love, and the achievements he makes in his own way. I'm convinced that's what she'd say. Lucky boy, indeed. ...read more blogs