One in a Million

My son Brother Bear is one in a million. He is friendly and outgoing, unlike his shy parents and sister, and was known in preschool as “everyone’s friend.” I think Brother has only had a handful of temper tantrums in his 5 years. As a newborn, he would wake up and cry with hunger and then immediately fall back asleep when he was satisfied. Now, he would sleep until 9 a.m. each day if I didn’t have to wake him for kindergarten. We know we are lucky parents and we are grateful every day to have this easy going, well-liked, patient child to call our own. He is one of a kind.

It’s a good thing that Brother Bear was blessed with enormous amounts of patience because he has had reason to use it many times in his five years. He has asthma and sometimes needs to do a 20-minute nebulizer treatment as many as five or six times a day. He has had several bouts of pneumonia and has waited in doctor’s waiting rooms and for x-rays more than I ever care to. But Brother Bear’s most trying issue is his food allergies. He is mildly allergic to eggs and tree nuts and has a severe peanut allergy. Every day, every single piece of food he puts in his mouth has to be thoughtfully considered.

After Brother Bear’s allergies were diagnosed, it took us at least a year to learn how to care for him. The pediatrician told us to eliminate Brother’s exposure to anything containing peanuts, including foods manufactured in the same facility or on the same equipment as peanut butter. We were told that if he ate a food containing peanuts, Brother Bear’s body would fight the food like poison: his mouth would swell, he might vomit, and his throat might close, causing him to stop breathing. He was prescribed an EpiPen, a shot of epinephrine that would stop the anaphylaxis, and were told that even if we used it successfully, we would need to rush him to the nearest emergency room. The EpiPen accompanies Brother everywhere he goes and I’ve trained countless friends and relatives how to use it.


For five years, the job of watching Brother Bear’s diet was solely the responsibility of his dad and me. We learned to ask many different kinds of questions about the foods Brother ate, whether it was at restaurants, play dates, birthday parties, and even Thanksgiving dinner. When he started kindergarten, we had to teach his principal, his teacher, the custodians and the cafeteria staff all about the intricacies of his allergy and how he might react if he was exposed. For five years, Brother trusted the two of us to care for him and keep him safe. Now we were putting our trust in the hands of others.

Brother Bear’s teachers, classmates, and friends have welcomed him into their lives without prejudice and that has made us feel comfortable trusting that he is in good hands. He learns in a peanut-free classroom where peanut products are forbidden to even be in the room. In the cafeteria, he sits at his own peanut-free table but usually manages to recruit a friend to sit with him. One day, I helped in his class and a friend mistakenly brought a peanut butter granola bar. When the teacher said he couldn’t eat it, I didn’t hear him complain. In fact, I’ve never heard any complaints about Brother’s allergy.

And I wonder if they don’t complain because Brother Bear doesn’t complain. Maybe it’s just part of his naturally patient personality but when we’re at a birthday party and I present Brother with the cupcake I made at home, he doesn’t complain. On Halloween, we have to throw away half the candy we collect trick-or-treating. Maybe it’s because we’re left with a stash large enough to feed him candy every day until Christmas, but he doesn’t complain.

Well, maybe he complains a little. At the beginning of kindergarten, Brother was desperate to ride the school bus. Riding the big yellow bus is an iconic part of growing up in suburban America and Brother Bear intended to ride it. But Papa Bear and I had concerns; the big yellow bus also has thirty other children who might be eating a bag of nuts or have peanut butter on their hands or lips. And the only adult supervising the ride is also responsible for driving thirty screaming jumping children in a twelve ton machine. Frankly, I’d rather that she paid attention to the road and not whether or not my child is having an allergic reaction.

Fall turned to winter and every day, Brother would ask if he could ride the bus. Every day we would say no and explain our rationale. He would sigh and tell us of all the adventures his friends were having on the bus. Even his teacher jokingly reminded us of his love for the bus. During countless late night conversations, Papa Bear and I reminded ourselves that the bus ride was less than ten minutes and Brother could be under the watchful eye of his big sister. And then we reminded ourselves about how we had already entrusted the school to care for him throughout the fall and they have done a stellar job.

An agonizing decision had finally been made. Emails were exchanged with the principal and a policy was carefully written outlining the rules for Brother’s ride. On a cold snowy January morning, we patiently waited for the bus and when it hissed to a stop in front of our house, I looked the bus driver in the eye and silently reminded myself that hundreds of families with more complicated problems trusted drivers like her to carry their children longer distances in more threatening weather. Needless to say, Brother Bear was wearing a giant smile as the bus rolled away and he waved frantically to me, still standing frozen with worry on the snowy sidewalk.

Maybe Brother Bear’s not quite one in a million; there are three million Americans living with a peanut allergy today. But when he smiled and waved to me from that big yellow bus, he was the most special one in the world.