Limping Into The Christmas Season

The other day, while watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special with Sean it dawned on me that Charlie Brown and I oddly enough have a lot in common. No, not thinning hair or a lack of robust color in our wardrobe but that we both suffer from the holiday blues. He mopes around talking about how sad and depressed he feels during the holidays. He even pays Lucy a nickel at her haphazard psychiatrist stand to drone on and on about the commercialization of Christmas and lack of meaning. By God, he and I could bore each other to tears on end with our incessant brooding.

For the life of me, I can’t seem to find much motivation or direction to accomplish much these days. Not only do I lack organization or sense of accomplishments lately but it’s also coupled with a certain, unexplained frustration which I can’t truly account for. I suppose it didn’t help that shortly after Thanksgiving I managed to tear a calf muscle on my very first run down Timberline up at Mt. Hood. What a way to kick off the ski and holiday season. I had stopped in a rough patch in order to try to coax Sean down a steep spot in the run but to no avail. He tilted his head back, heavy with his shiny blue helmet yelling, “I want to go home!”

Not too long after my husband whizzed by, picked up Sean and skied with him to the bottom near the chair lift. I decided to start my way down but my uphill ski was wedged like an anchor in the wet, heavy snow and so I began to fall, almost in slow motion, too slow to release my boot from the binding, but hard enough to hear a pop of muscle coming from my right ski boot. Somehow I managed to slide to the bottom, ride the lift to the top and shuffle in my boots to the First Aid tent. My husband smiled weakly and said, “Will you be okay just icing it?” Which really meant, “Do you mind lying on the stiff army cot in the First Aid tent with your calf on a Ziploc of snow for another four hours while we get the most out of our ski passes?” Which of course I did, making small talk with the medics and watching my leg swell like a blowfish.

Two days after the ugly mountain mishap, my husband headed off on a planned trip to China (seriously, China, no joke) while I hobbled around getting the kids to school and activities, the shopping and cooking. That week might possibly have been the longest week of my life. Limping around the house, icing my calf on frozen peas, swearing non-stop underneath my breath and nearly falling into tears every time I would have to go from the gas pedal to the brakes -- the littlest tasks turning into heroic feats was just too much to bear. Without my husband I had little backup as far as Sean goes. And as far as Sean, he showed little understanding of why it took so long for me to get around or how come I would flinch so easily when he would come bounding towards me. My older son did his best to help out or run interference, but at only twelve years old, his schedule has begun to resemble that of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and I have somehow been hired on without pay as his chauffer.

It has been almost a month, the calf has been mending quite well but my attitude is still in need of fine tuning. At least I am in good company with a certain Mr. Charlie Brown, who seemed fairly down on his luck and yet the Christmas spirit certainly snuck up on him and by the end of the special brought him great tidings of comfort and joy. So there’s still hope that I can turn it all around, I guess. Christmas is four days away. Here’s to holding out for a real sense of joy and comfort and peacefulness. That’s all I want for Christmas. I don’t need “stuff.” Just some happiness – and make it last.

A Wish for 2011

It has been ten Christmases. Almost ten New Years. You were born in January of 2001 and it is hard to imagine that it is almost 2011. I miss the boy I thought you were going to be. The handsome red head with broad shoulders and laughter. Someday you would break your mother’s heart as you grew up and grew away. I would pine for the soft baby I held in my arms, with eyes fixed on me like milky green-blue marbles and pink, perfect lips. You would grow older and wiser and leave me empty and alone.

But it has been ten Christmases. And almost ten New Years. And you are still a little boy, soft and tender. I have had to let go of the boy you were supposed to be – a heart throb and charmer and remain in love with the boy you are, frozen and still, a five year old trapped in all the makings of a ten year old.

I watch other children watch you in wonder and amusement, your body hopping and snapping like a muscle spasm in a giant’s thigh. I want to protect you and cover their eyes and tell them they don’t know the mighty heart that beats within the walls of your small chest -- a boy who, to know fault of his own, lost pieces of himself, as easily as gritty sand falls through fingers on an ordinary day at the beach. You were somebody one minute and somebody else another.

I loved you from the moment you were born, a twisting, wet seal pup on a scale with a flash of red hair and a determined holler. You were a piece of me, ordered up at a deli counter to be weighed and wrapped and snuggled in my arms, newspaper print leeching onto my fingers, tattooing your story forever on my palms.

If I could make you whole I would. I watch you struggle and cry and I stand helplessly – no parent should go through that. I wish a mother’s love could mend the cracks and repair the seams and keep you whole once more. I can’t help but feel that I have let you down, somewhere along the way and for that I will always feel the rugged braid of scar tissue that interrupts the smoothness of my heart.

But who is to say that it is all final, that you won’t rise like the stealthy Phoenix from gray ashes and shake off the blinding dust. That you might soar once more, your heart and soul scraping against the belly of the sun. It’s the least you deserve, little one, for the frightening and dark world that you have grown to know. Let this new year offer you more hope and opportunity to feel more akin to those who love you and live in this world. Let this new year welcome you home to the arms of those who never tire, waiting patiently for your return.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Last Sunday we took Sean to see Santa. This time we did it differently. No giant shopping mall where the line snakes for miles, weaving through ropes with families pressed against other children and parents anxiously awaiting their turns to tell the big guy in the red suit what they would like for Christmas. We have done this in the past. Sean has some really good strengths. Standing in a long line, packed like sardines, waiting patiently is not one of them. Usually my husband and I would take turns chasing him under the red velvet ropes, catching him mid-hop and pulling him back into line as he threw elbows and arched his back. We were the family in line that seemed to be standing on an active earthquake fault line – swaying into others, my hips and shoulders brushing into moms and dads and my constant apologies falling flat. It got to be such a stressful tradition that we were ready to say the heck with it.

Luckily, we got word of a Santa that was going to be available to kids with disabilities, including autism. This would have to be one understanding, patient, tolerant Santa. The thing with autism is that if you have seen one child with autism then you have seen one child with autism. Autistic children are like delicate snowflakes, similar and yet no two are ever the same. Who is to say how each child may react? Often their reactions differ greatly.

The clinical director, Kathi Calouri and the program director, Eric Hamblen at PACE Place in Beaverton, Oregon (http://www.paceplaceinc.com/) arranged to have a Santa for their many clients who, year after year, have struggled with taking their disabled child/children to see Santa – a typical tradition that most take for granted. In fact, most families with children who have autism don’t even bother. The unpredictability coupled with the lack of understanding and tolerance can make a holiday must-do into a CHRISTMAS NIGHTMARE. It’s no fun when your child hops around Santa and stims, or bites Santa or screams at the elf and the others in line. It’s even harder when your child is not a feisty three or four year old but a growing eight or nine year old. As the parents of these children we can see the fright building in their eyes and the tiredness in their bodies from trying to hold still in the noise and crowd. We are constantly preparing for the impending storms that hit hard while out in public.

We paid for a private fifteen minute time slot to bring Sean into PACE Place. Kathi and Eric were on hand, along with a photographer, a wonderfully charming Santa and an Elf. There was no line, no others milling around waiting for their turns and my child’s excited hopping and yelping was welcomed. We had the opportunity to take a family picture but since my oldest son was at a hockey game and I came in sweat pants and a hair that was in desperate need of a brush, we decided to just get the pictures with Sean. The photographer took a dozen pictures while Sean talked to Santa and hugged him repeatedly. There was no rush, no uncomfortable glances among the others and no heartache for my husband and me. In fact, we were quite happy to see our boy participate in an activity that was slowly becoming impossible to accomplish. Our handsome boy was all smiles enveloped in the arms of Santa and whispering that he would like a Jakers DVD for Christmas.

I am thankful that there are people in this world that share their heart and compassion with families like us – that understand how tricky and lonely the path can be that we must travel and are happy to offer an elbow and share with us a knowing smile. As we drove away, my husband said,

“I’m glad you signed Sean up for that. It’s good to see him so happy.”

Autism makes life a lot tougher for all of us. But it also makes moments like these more beautiful and tender -- a glossy photograph capturing my boy’s smile and happiness while being held in the arms of a kind Santa is one of the most precious gifts.