Just an update on where we are since it has been a while since I have been compelled to blog on this topic. I am sitting quietly by the fire tonight after an evening of laughter and discussion with one of my dearest friends and I am filled with gratitude for all that I have in my life. Especially my wonderful boys.
I think of the path we have walked in the past year and a half since diagnosis, and really, the path that has been ours since their birth, and I am quietly overcome with the significance of their having been given to me in this life. Not a day has passed that I have not questioned whether I will be able to do enough, to teach them what they need to learn to survive. The importance of the roll I have been chosen to play sometimes feels overwhelming and there are moments I feel very ill equiped.
They are both in private school now doing exceptionally well. We had on the last report card six honours subjects each. But that doesn't really tell the whole story. The fact that moving my youngest up a grade because there was no grade six class and they felt academically he was up to the challenge ended up putting him in classes with his older brother part time due to the small class sizes. That this changed his status in our house from odd little brother with "challenges" to "peer" and even "friend". How a lonely little boy who had trouble fitting in, had his world dramatically change because his older brother's best friend took a "big brother" interest in him and never left him out. Both of my boys are walking taller, wrestling each other, sharing jokes and interests. They are quietly best friends ( though both would deny it if asked! Just like brothers!). When they come in at the end of the day joking and laughing about what happened at school my heart squeezes in my chest as I watch them together.
My oldest is tall and gentle with a sharp sense of humour and an incredible kindness to him. He stalks me around the kitchen as I am trying to make dinner saying "hugs". Normally I am ducking and weaving shooting comments like "come on buddy or we are never going to eat! " But I am reading a book right now that is reminding me to stay in the moment and in the car on the way home the other day I looked at him and I told him that one of the things I love the most about him is how affectionate he was. I promised that from that moment on I would stand still when he needed a hug, not try to wiggle out of it and just enjoy the fact that I was lucky enough to have a 14 year old son who actually wants to hug me!!!! He couldn't stop smiling and he reminds me now several times a day I promised to stand still!
At Halloween, they both went out, but it is my youngest that is still big on trick or treating. My parents love to see them dressed up so we closed it down at home when the kids stopped coming and headed out to their acreage. My dad and my youngest disappeared and were gone for an hour and showed up with an entire pillow case full of candy giggling like a couple of kids who had just pulled off the greatest caper in history. They had a ball together. On the way home, he said from the backseat how he was almost too old to trick or treat anymore, but he really couldn't help it because Grandma and Grandpa make it so darn fun. He asked if he could use my phone to text them to tell them that. In the darkness that filled the car, with tears in my eyes that he couldn't see I handed him my phone and thought about how very far we have come. He is starting to think about the feelings of other people. For a person with Asperger's, this is huge progress. He is learning how important it is to tell people that what they do makes a difference to him. He is learning more of these things everyday. I realize I want to be better at doing the same. We are not so very different. It takes courage to share with the people you love exactly how you feel in the moment without feeling shy about that.
I remember early on feeling very hopeless and very alone. I don't feel that way anymore. In fact I feel blessed and lucky. The lessons these boys teach me every day make me so very grateful to have been given such compassionate teachers. Such gentle souls. We are in a good place, and we have each other. I look forward to the future as I have never been able to before where they are concerned, not as an enemy or something to be fought through, but instead as a bringer of mystery, of possibility and finally of hope. We speak openly and honestly with one another and we work through issues when they come up the best we can. And as they get older the possibilities and understanding get deeper and wider and the relationships we are building stronger with every moment we share, every difficulty we manouever through.
A dear friend who was doing a reading for me, said something that affected me profoundly. She said you feel tremendous guilt about what these boys deal with, as though it were your fault. They both chose their incarnations, as do we all, because there were things they wanted to learn. And the truth of that is, then so did I choose this incarnation, because it was what I needed to learn as well.
Gratitude is about being grateful for all you have been given, and I can honestly say that I truly am. My cup runeth over and my hands are full of blessings. I wish you all the same.
In love and light,
Kathryn
I think of the path we have walked in the past year and a half since diagnosis, and really, the path that has been ours since their birth, and I am quietly overcome with the significance of their having been given to me in this life. Not a day has passed that I have not questioned whether I will be able to do enough, to teach them what they need to learn to survive. The importance of the roll I have been chosen to play sometimes feels overwhelming and there are moments I feel very ill equiped.
They are both in private school now doing exceptionally well. We had on the last report card six honours subjects each. But that doesn't really tell the whole story. The fact that moving my youngest up a grade because there was no grade six class and they felt academically he was up to the challenge ended up putting him in classes with his older brother part time due to the small class sizes. That this changed his status in our house from odd little brother with "challenges" to "peer" and even "friend". How a lonely little boy who had trouble fitting in, had his world dramatically change because his older brother's best friend took a "big brother" interest in him and never left him out. Both of my boys are walking taller, wrestling each other, sharing jokes and interests. They are quietly best friends ( though both would deny it if asked! Just like brothers!). When they come in at the end of the day joking and laughing about what happened at school my heart squeezes in my chest as I watch them together.
My oldest is tall and gentle with a sharp sense of humour and an incredible kindness to him. He stalks me around the kitchen as I am trying to make dinner saying "hugs". Normally I am ducking and weaving shooting comments like "come on buddy or we are never going to eat! " But I am reading a book right now that is reminding me to stay in the moment and in the car on the way home the other day I looked at him and I told him that one of the things I love the most about him is how affectionate he was. I promised that from that moment on I would stand still when he needed a hug, not try to wiggle out of it and just enjoy the fact that I was lucky enough to have a 14 year old son who actually wants to hug me!!!! He couldn't stop smiling and he reminds me now several times a day I promised to stand still!
At Halloween, they both went out, but it is my youngest that is still big on trick or treating. My parents love to see them dressed up so we closed it down at home when the kids stopped coming and headed out to their acreage. My dad and my youngest disappeared and were gone for an hour and showed up with an entire pillow case full of candy giggling like a couple of kids who had just pulled off the greatest caper in history. They had a ball together. On the way home, he said from the backseat how he was almost too old to trick or treat anymore, but he really couldn't help it because Grandma and Grandpa make it so darn fun. He asked if he could use my phone to text them to tell them that. In the darkness that filled the car, with tears in my eyes that he couldn't see I handed him my phone and thought about how very far we have come. He is starting to think about the feelings of other people. For a person with Asperger's, this is huge progress. He is learning how important it is to tell people that what they do makes a difference to him. He is learning more of these things everyday. I realize I want to be better at doing the same. We are not so very different. It takes courage to share with the people you love exactly how you feel in the moment without feeling shy about that.
I remember early on feeling very hopeless and very alone. I don't feel that way anymore. In fact I feel blessed and lucky. The lessons these boys teach me every day make me so very grateful to have been given such compassionate teachers. Such gentle souls. We are in a good place, and we have each other. I look forward to the future as I have never been able to before where they are concerned, not as an enemy or something to be fought through, but instead as a bringer of mystery, of possibility and finally of hope. We speak openly and honestly with one another and we work through issues when they come up the best we can. And as they get older the possibilities and understanding get deeper and wider and the relationships we are building stronger with every moment we share, every difficulty we manouever through.
A dear friend who was doing a reading for me, said something that affected me profoundly. She said you feel tremendous guilt about what these boys deal with, as though it were your fault. They both chose their incarnations, as do we all, because there were things they wanted to learn. And the truth of that is, then so did I choose this incarnation, because it was what I needed to learn as well.
Gratitude is about being grateful for all you have been given, and I can honestly say that I truly am. My cup runeth over and my hands are full of blessings. I wish you all the same.
In love and light,
Kathryn
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