When Gabriel was born, he was blessed with dimples. Everyone
loved his dimples. We would go out to the park, Bellevue Square
(o', how I miss thee!), the grocery store, and complete strangers
would come up to coo over his dimples.

"What a beautiful baby!" they would say. "And those dimples!"

I admit it. I thought he was cuter than other babies. The dimples
helped. He was also a complete ham. He basked in the
attention, inviting more with a smile and a giggle. One time, he
even winked at another baby as if he were signing: hey, baby.
My crib. Tonight.

And then, while learning to stand at nine-months-of-age, he fell
over, stiff as a tree, smacking his head against the floor of a
poorly insulated hotel room carpet. That happened on Thursday.
Janette was able to comfort his cries, and we thought nothing
more of it. He settled down. He behaved normally. Sleep
patterns didn't change. He seemed fine.

Saturday, we went to the laundrymat. Taking Gabriel for a walk,
I noticed something different. I took a closer, face-on look at his
head. I cocked my own head, taking him in from a couple
different angles. Granted, I was a first-time dad, but I was
pretty sure his head was not supposed to grow asymmetrically.

A bump on the left side of his head had begun to form. Janette
and I watched it blossom with some apprehension. Within a few
hours, it had moved beyond the "boo-boo" to the "uh-oh" size,
and we took Gabriel to the local emergency room.

Dr. Disney (really his name) evaluated Gabriel. He walked him
through some basic neurological tests, and asked us some
questions, both to evaluate Gabriel and us, as parents. He took
an x-ray. Several hours later, he let us know that Gabriel had a
hairline fracture across the left side of his skull. We needed to
watch him for certain signs, but the doctor felt pretty confident
that Gabriel would heal up fine on his own.

To add drama, Gabriel did throw up within a few hours of that
visit: a significant sign of possible head trauma. Janette and I
scrambled to get ready to go back to the hospital. Clothes:
check! Diapers: check! Pacifier? Pacifier? We found a piece
of it hidden in the bedsheets. Gabriel, blessed with a fantastic
gag reflex, had chewed threw it and thrown it up. His airway
clear, we cleaned up and settled back in for the long night.

Overnight, Gabriel grew two, golf-ball sized bumps on the left
side of his head, both bruising up nicely. We continued to do our
usual stuff including shopping and eating out, but Gabriel was
suddenly persona non grata. The dimples had not disappeared;
he smiled as much as ever. However, people had to track
visually from the misshapen head and most, if they looked at all,
never made it to the dimples.

At best, we were ignored; at worst, avoided. No one cooed.
We could walk the mall, and the river of shoppers would part
ahead of us, eyes averted or downcast.

I recognized this. I grew up with this. My oldest brother,
Michael, was born with spina bifida and the cognitive disabilities
commonly associated with it at that time (due to fluid on the
brain). I knew that shifted glance and that avoidance well. No
one wanted to acknowledge the beautiful child that happened to
have a visually-recognizable disability.

Knowing that Gabriel's "diagnosis" was temporary, I was amused
in some ways, disturbed in others. Janette, Gabriel, and I didn't
change our behavior. We did the same things we always did.
We continued to work with Gabriel on learning to stand. We ate
out. We shopped. The world around us, however, categorized
us with its avoidance. We were Different Family. We didn't
belong.

Within a few weeks, Gabriel's head returned to its former size.
The lumps disappeared. The bruises faded. The coos and
(sometimes unwelcome) attention of strangers returned. We
were embraced again by the Typical World, welcomed back into
the fold.
Looking back, I view our shared, two-week visit to Different
Family as a reminder and an induction to experiencing disabilities
as a family. Three years later, with the first, extended ultrasound
for our daughter, the "huh, that's unusual" pauses, I began to get
the feeling we might be traveling back down that road for which
Gabriel and growing up with my brother, Michael, had prepared
us.