The Truest, Most Beautiful Story

​I think I had stepped about a foot away from him when he said, “mommy come back!” I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. No matter how much time I spent with him it wasn’t enough. My 3 year old autistic son didn’t want me to leave his side. He ran away from dad. I started to move around the kitchen, making his lunch and packing his bag while he screamed at me and I could feel his anxiety. I tried to reply calmly and explain to him why I couldn’t go sit on the couch and watch television. I even gave him a long hug but it didn’t help. He wanted what he wanted and wasn’t going to let it go. That’s my Jeff. He’s all about control. And he doesn’t like not finishing a task that he started.
Lately, he has not been taking naps at school and I think it’s probably making all his stress worse. Tonight we put him to bed very early, and we will see if that helps.
We are on the waiting list for ABA therapy and they should have an opening next month. It’s all about trial and error with these little ones. Prepping them for what they can’t control, for changes in routine, and for the uncomfortable. But how the heck am I supposed to do that everyday when life happens?  How often I plan my days and those plans don’t workout. What do you do then? 
If I’m being honest, I fear for his future. If he has these meltdowns now, what will puberty look like with added hormones? What if Dad or I are not there to help him calm down when he has a meltdown?  He screams until he turns purple and thrashes his arms for what feels like eternity. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes and other times its 30 minutes. The pain we have to bear….why God?  Why? I don’t understand but I trust you because I know your love is bigger than my fears and what I see before me. You go before me and know well the plans you have for my heart. Yet I want to scream and cry and throw things myself because some days it doesn’t feel fair. Tonight I’m the elephant in the circle and I called a sister friend in a similar situation asking for prayers and support. It was therapy for my soul. If you know, you know.
And somehow, I wouldn’t change him at all. I love how he is so attentive to detail, how much he loves books, how much he loves quiet, his gentle soul, and his excitement for animals and outer space. I love how much he loves to be silly and can laugh at the same thing over again as though it’s the first time. His meltdowns teach me patience and fortitude. His slowness reminds me to be present.
Glennon Doyle once wrote that she asks her writers, what is the truest, most beautiful story about your life you can imagine? The mother of a second dying child wrote, “I can imagine a thousand easier stories about mothers and sons. I can think of a million happier ones. But I cannot imagine a single story truer or more beautiful than the heartbreaking one I’m living now, with my boys.”
Touche. Although my children aren’t dying, I cannot imagine Jeff as a different boy. I don’t want a perfect story. That might be easier but it doesn’t bring about true, beautiful character that has been developed through trials and stumbled through many storms. I want to fight the good fight. I want to do what it takes to make Jeff the best version of himself, and in doing so become the best version of myself. That is what my heart desires.
I once read the question of whether we would bring our special needs children to be healed by Jesus if he were here today. Some days I want Jesus to heal Jeff, but often times I think if I brought him to Jesus he would just place his hand on my heart to give me the eyes to see the beauty of it all.
 
 
 

---