Maureen Webber, Contributor

Two children were granted to me. I welcomed my first, Brian, on August 6, 1992. When I discovered I was pregnant, I hung up my helmet and put away my Harley Davidson. Anna-K entered our world some four years later. With her birth came the death of my marriage, yet her birth brought an entire new life into my home.

Today, I accept that my second child is indeed my first. You see, my first child will always be a child in so many ways.

Managing the odds

Brian is on the brink of the official teenage years. He is non-verbal; he has severe intellectual disability and is now learning to dress himself.

There is no diagnosis. I gave up chasing that wagon of truth about 10 years ago and accepted the important truth - he is mine.

Despite the fact that Brian functions below the age of three in so many areas, I have learnt, and so has his sister, to celebrate the things he has achieved.

At 30 months, he took his first steps and today, our celebrations are for seemingly little things.

As our time together has passed, I have watched my second-born evolve into my firstborn. It has caused me some moments of sadness yet I am grateful for Anna-K's evolution.

The inner beauty

She is strong, she is caring, she is creative and what an inner beauty! I saw and felt that she was in her own pain, and that, in fact, although we were living together, we were separated by the reality of just how different Brian is.

Anna-K got counselling. I left a stressful work environment and we all became one again.

When we got to that space, I realised just how much she was my first child. She was and still is clear on her brother's needs. She has full conversations with him; she speaks to him and listens to his responses. She expected Brian to respect her and not hit her (eventually he stopped). As Anna-K said in a story she wrote recently, "Now he is wiser".

On each of our birthdays, Anna-K and I would wish for just one thing: that Brian would be able to talk. This year, on my birthday, I made my wish. Anna-K asked if it was the same wish, I said: "No, I wished for the peace and the joy that I was experiencing right at the moment I was blowing out the candles."

Not giving up

She made it clear she was not giving up her dream; I let that pass, for now. Soon it will be time to teach her that I learnt to dream new dreams and she would too.

My second born, who is now my first child, protects her brother fiercely. She will explain to others that her brother has special needs, but that he can understand, you just have to want him to.

You should see the three of us; we hold hands, Brian in the middle, while Anna-K and I protect him from a hostile world.

Anna-K is Brian's greatest fan at every Special Olympics event. The year he was named the athlete who embodied the 'Spirit of Special Olympics' I think she was prouder than I was.

I am grateful I have balance in my life.

My second child is indeed cognitively older than her brother who is chronologically older than her. But I will ensure that she enjoys her childhood. I want to put aside, for now, the level of responsibility I hear when she says, without reservation, that when mummy is gone, Brian will live with her.