My only remaining prayers are please and thank you.
I don’t know what else to pray. I don’t know what else to say. I want to stay in a place of gratitude. Jonah was a good boy for M and me when we took him today; he enjoyed car ride in the rain, and we took a few very cool grey-skied foggy droplet pictures:
a dozen or so goslings with their mom and dad…
we’re not sure why the rooster crossed the road
the woods were like dream visions.
We even risked the wrath of Jonah to turn around and zoom in on the great blue heron. You don’t see those every day.
The truth is I’m just trying to keep it together. I’m phone-shy and out-in-public shy. I don’t much want to talk to anyone, even people I love. I like silence, and listening to Guster and my new Paul Simon CD. At work I listen to classical music all day. I eat sporadically and my sleep is full of dreams. I’m reading, but slowly, a chapter at a time. Practically the only thing I can stand to watch on TV is Match Game, with Charles Nelson Riley’s campy 70’s antics.
Oh, and I write some, and make endless bead necklaces. I used to complain I have ‘no countdown’ with Jonah and the residential schools; I hated that I didn’t know when Jonah would have to go away. Well now I know, and now I complain about that. Can I stop fucking complaining?
May, June, July, August, September, October, November…
This time next year I will be, in a lot of ways, no longer playing a mother-role. It’s not like some of the other families, who turn a great deal more attention to their other kids. There are no other kids. I am relieved and aggrieved by this, just as everything I feel or say or think or do feels paradoxical these days.
I will not be bathing my son, helping him put on his shoes & coat, holding him, riding him to see train or red barn or grandma. Andy will not be putting him on or off the bus, giving him wagon rides, making sure he eats healthily enough, has his teeth brushed, and is kissed goodnight.
Jonah will not be bruising, kicking, scratching, hitting, biting us, or grabbing & mangling our glasses and faces anymore. He will be in others’ care. Experts’ care. He will learn and grow and get better.
I guess I will probably see my son once a week for a few hours. Will he know I am his mama?
Will he know I will always be his mama?
It’s as much of a mind-trip as it is the only thing left to do. It’s time to try to begin to attempt to absorb it all. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I can’t. I have to. I’d rather they take him next week, or never. It’s too long to wait. It’s not long enough. Please don’t take him. Please take him.
Please, please love him.
Everything is contradictory… and it is understandable that you are feeling all of these things. There is no one right way, one right plan, one answer. Conflicted- that may be the word I am looking for…
I am wondering if too there is sometimes a letting go of what we hope(d) might be. Our image of what we wish or imagine could be is perhaps the thing to which we cling, more so in fact than the reality of our experience. Sometimes we grieve for the loss of the dream…
I think this is what we face when we first learn that our children are not typical. A loss of sorts of what we had planned, or hoped for, or envisioned. We didn’t choose our paths, but this is where we are: sometimes it is beautiful and unfortunately sometimes it is heartbreaking. Our children change our hearts, our lives, our vision of what is important, and our very being- so that we too are no longer typical. Our path is not typical.
It may turn out to be a different dream: a dream we didn’t expect, or a path we didn’t intend or even get to choose.
What I notice Amy, is that you are following your heart with this and it is obvious that every step is taken with care and love for your child. This is probably the hardest thing you will ever do, and your strength and resolve to do what is best for your boy at times also requires a retreat into solitude, a slow read of the next chapter, or mindless fix of 70’s kitsch TV game shows. Give yourself what it is you need.
It is natural to feel conflicted. If I recall correctly, I think it is the Chinese character for risk or danger that is also the symbol for opportunity. The two go together… the Yin and the Yang…
Perhaps it is like Buddha’s brave tulip: risking first emergence but also first to find spring…
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And now I sit, chin in hand, rereading and pondering whether to press post.
It is hard to know the right thing to say…
as much as my heart and tears are with you…
I know I cannot fully understand
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Thank you Leah…always press post please
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Leah has really said it all. I’ll only add a plea that you not judge yourself for a nanosecond for your conflicted feelings, for your needs for solitude, kitchy TV, whatever. You are a precious, precious soul walking one of the most difficult paths on this planet. And you deserve love and kindness–from everyone who knows you and from yourself. I’m beaming lots of love from Woodstock.
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I love what Leah has said. She is so full of wisdom. Hang in there!
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The transparency of your journey so touches me Amy…
I’d be lying if I say I know how you feel. I don’t. But I know how much I love my children, so I can only imagine how you’re feeling.
You are Jonah’s Mama and he will always know that.
Do whatever you need to absorb, heal, endure – silence. Music. Charles Nelson Riley?!:-)
Hugs to you dear…
Luckie
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