Grown Up Things...

Loss is something I am all too familiar with.

I started losing family members way before most people should.

I lost my sister at age two.

She and I would have been about 18 months apart and we would have been a force to be recon with I think.

My great grandmother on my mother's side died when I was five. It was the first time I had ever been to a funeral home and seen a person in a casket. It was also the first time I ever saw my great grandmother, or at least could remember seeing her.

I don't remember my great grandfather's on my paternal side's funeral. I think my parents left me in the care of a sitter.

I then lost my maternal grandfather at seven and then my other grandfather at thirteen.

At the age of twenty-five I lost both of my grandmother's and at the age of thirty one of my friends.

I know loss. I do.

All those losses however never prepared me for my children leaving home though.

No one mentioned that it was going to be hard to let them grow up and leave.

 

When Booga was diagnosed, I became involved with The Autism Society in our area. There hadn't been one and I was one of the people who started it. I remember I was first contact for many people who were in the midst of finding out that their child was Autistic.

One conversation I had with a parent stood out in my mind.

It was a conversation with an elderly woman about her thirty or forty year old son who she was so worried about because she didn't know what they would do with him when they were gone? She was perplexed and honestly I had no answers for her and I think I told her to call mental health and or talk to The Autism Society and ask for options. I tried to be compassionate and understanding but to be honest I was out of my league in terms of being able to be helpful.

The way she had gotten my number was through her husband who had met my husband in the garage my husband was employed in at the time. I don't know how the subject came up but somehow they both related to each other that they each had a son with Autism. It broke my heart I wasn't able to give her clear answers but this was something I was not prepared for.

When I finally was able to hang up the phone (to be honest I think I was making cookies because I remember handling dough while I was talking to her) I couldn't stop thinking about how "that could be me".

 

Since then the idea of someday having Boog leave us and live elsewhere has morphed. At first it was out of the question. Then my other children were adamant to the fact that he would surely come and live with them (even though I expressed reservations to the fact that future spouses might not want their little Autistic brother living with them. This has proved to be a wrong assumption, as Chewie's wife-to-be is very accepting of their little, special, brother). Now it has congealed into an idea that someday Boog might live in an assisted living home.

The other day I told him that he will be working with a company that hires special needs personal as a part-time job this summer. He looked at me like, "What?" And I explained it would only be three times a week and that he would get paid (weakly) and that he could save that money for something or somewhere he wanted to go.

That seemed okay by him.

His biggest concern was when lunch would be.

That's important in Boogaland.

 

It's a step to independence. It's a step to pulling away from us as he does all the time when he goes to use the key to help me get in the back door; handling it like he has always done it. It's a step like when he doesn't want me to watch him use the computer that he has just suddenly begun to express interest in since he found a way to play games on it. (This isn't too far from being like his older brother). It's a step like not allowing me to watch him like a hawk when he does chores. He looks at me disgustedly and waves me off to go in the other room. And of course I go, with one ear open to whether or not the water is continually running in the sink or whether he is putting something in the clothes washer (which he is told not to do-at least not yet. Not until he understands the difference between bleach and detergent).

And when time comes for him to separate from me it's probably going to be as heartbreaking if not more as the other two, because Booga will have spent more years at home than the other two spawn.

 

When Missy left, it was sudden. She graduated from high school and she left and went to another state and got married the same year and I knew- I knew the moment she got married that she was not coming back- and it broke my heart.

I spent hours in her room watching her television and laying on her bed. I sobbed at night for her. When we came home after she got married I cried all the way home. Every few minutes I sobbed and nothing could consol me. I missed her so very much because she and I were so close and I believed that we always would be like that. That she always would be just a short drive away. Not a thousand or more miles.

However, eventually after she established a career path, I knew it was okay.

I had raised a strong woman, like I had always told myself I would do. I had raised an independent woman that would not rely on anyone but herself (although there are times in this life when we have to take the help of other people….I would have to remind her of that sometimes). I finally allowed myself to let her go, although nothing would make me happier to hear than the words, "Mom, I found a job at home and I'm moving back!"

And she would chuckle at that.

When my son Chewie became addicted to computer games and couldn't find a job, it became apparent that we would have to send him somewhere, where there were jobs, and where he could establish himself and somewhere where he could get away from computer games and focus on real life.

We took what money we had saved for a new driveway and heart broken, we sent him to live with his sister and find a life in her city.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I was depressed and shattered. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't want to be around people, I wanted the world to stop spinning and smiling and laughing, I felt alone and defeated. I felt ripped apart because my Chewie and I were so very close- and for as much grief as I gave him- he had to know how very much I loved him.

Love takes many forms and one of the most loving things a parent can do is force their children into the world and out into life and I couldn't see that at that moment. All I could see is the fact that I had abandoned my son to world. Neither of my older children was within a few minutes of me anymore. I was alone. I was angry at the game company Blizzard for making me make such a choice. I was sad because I was so lonely, I was sad because I had to push him out of the nest I had so carefully constructed. It took a long time to be okay with it. But then he met his fiancée and I realized that there are reasons why God makes us do things.

It was odd because when he was moving there were people we were talking to that said they were from the state he was moving to and there were songs that would randomly come on the radio about the place he was moving to, almost like God was sending us little signs that this was what needed to happen.

And as it turned out, this was the best thing for him. It was difficult and hard at first but sometimes you have throw someone into water and make them sink or swim. And he began to tread water after a few difficult and painful months and now seems to be at least dogpaddling into life.

Things finally have begun to be normal again.

 

Now what of Booga?

I don't know what is going to happen with that? I have a feeling this might be worse. Not only because I have spent my life in pursuit of helping him have a life, but because he will have lived with us so long.

I know that I need him to grow up because every once in a while I think to myself that Boog is kind of a ball and chain, I can do nothing without consideration as to what kind of impact this will make on Boog. I can go nowhere without finding care for Booga. I can't just leave, I can't go back to work (not that anyone would hire me at my age- in my profession) because he takes up so much of my time and I am at his beck and call. So what happens the moment that the umbilical cord is cut with him? What is going to be my reaction to that?

 

I have had some pretty profound losses, and I think to myself that everything works to the good of those that love God. I wonder how I am going to deal with that and if all these other losses and growths of my adulthood will have prepared me for this eventuality?

I can only pray and hope that it has.  We will see and then we will know, I guess.

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