By Kristen M. Scott
My son sat calmly at the Thanksgiving table this year, and I am grateful for that. His behavior has been volatile and erratic for months now, leaving me tense and anxious.
Watching him wait patiently to begin eating, I thought of the people who have touched his life and mine for the last 15 years, the teachers and therapists, friends and strangers who have helped him, and guided me through the maze that is autism.
I wish I could thank them all again, and tell them how much their commitment and devotion to Daniel has meant to me, as I’ve struggled to parent this exceptional child I so often do not understand. I’d thank his first bus driver, who gently took Daniel’s hand when he was just three years old, going off alone to a special classroom, two towns away. I’d thank again the teachers and aides who developed innovative strategies to engage him, finding his strengths and rejoicing in his victories, however brief or small. The therapists who encouraged me to seek Daniel’s best, to believe in his intelligence even when standardized testing indicated mental retardation. The staff of Northern Suburban Special Education District, whose dedication to Daniel always made me feel that he is their one and only student.
I’d thank the strangers at the grocery store who understood when their cheerful greetings to this beautiful boy went unheeded, who did not stare while I pushed him through the aisles in a shopping cart when he was 14 years old, or subdued a random tantrum in the parking lot. I would thank the students at Deerfield High School, who accepted Daniel as a peer, with all his idiosyncrasies, and my daughter’s friends, who have supported her through the challenges she has faced with her special sibling. I’d thank the woman who comforted me recently as paramedics struggled to restrain my son after an aggressive outburst in a crowded restaurant, who held me while I cried and murmured repeatedly, “It will be alright.”
And I’d say thanks again to Kimberlee Goldsmith, Daniel’s teacher for the last two years, who has remained committed to his learning, despite his increasingly alarming behavior, despite his growth now into a young man too large and strong for either of us to manage. She has never given up on him, has constantly sought the bright and loving boy she knows Daniel to be, even as his moods would swing wildly, as his aggression focused on her, as he injured her as she tried to help him.
Daniel will not be at our Christmas table this year. He is moving in mid-December to a residential school in Wisconsin for developmentally disabled children and teens. I don’t know how I will endure this, how I will let go of this child I love so deeply. But I believe this is his best shot at learning to manage his life as the young man he has become, and achieving his highest potential. I’ve been told he is doing as well as he is due, in large part, to the support and commitment of those who love and work with him.
So I thank you all again, who have touched my son’s life, and my own, who have supported us both through this unfamiliar journey. Thank you for loving Daniel, for encouraging me all these years, for telling me again that even a decision as heartbreaking as the one we are making now is the right one.