More Than Meets the Eye

When most of us look at this photo, we see two children (perhaps related, judging by their curly hair and cheek structure) playing.

One is pushing the swing.

One is swinging. 

In this case, this literal interpretation is literally true.

What is also happening is this: these two children are in a therapy session and they are learning how to play with each other, how to take turns, and how to talk to each other. Their therapist is teaching them how to manage a healthy relationship despite their language differences. 

One is learning how to communicate to someone (her brother) of few words and little eye contact.

One is learning how to receive and attend to someone's (his sister's) revised, and simplified style of communication. 

So, this photo, to our family, is also a symbolic representation of a relationship that is forming between two siblings. A symbolic representation of them getting past their language barriers. There was and still is a space between them that causes them to steer clear of each other, stay to themselves, because (I suspect) there is also a fear that lies between them in not being able to understand each other fully.

The subtext beyond this photo is that these two someone's are becoming the kind of brother and sister who have their own shared language because they are moment-to-moment creating a new language together.

The quality of this photo may be nothing to a photographer, but the quality of the experience captured in this photo is everything to me.