by Kristen -

Good Enough

The day before she planned to board a plane to Chicago for Christmas, my sister-in-law tripped on the stairs of her home, tumbling all the way to bottom.  Fortunately, she was able to call a neighbor, who drove her to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed a nasty concussion and badly sprained ankle.

Advised not to fly for at least a week, she spent the holiday alone, half a country away from the family who loved her.  It was not the annual reunion any of us had hoped for.

It could have been so much worse, of course, as we told ourselves repeatedly over the next few days.  Living alone, she may have lain unconscious for hours before someone found her.  She could have been permanently injured, even killed.  The possibilities don’t bear thinking of.

She was, in fact, lucky.  Yet luck is a relative term.

I’ve struggled with this kind of contradiction often since my son’s diagnosis, seeking the bright side, the countless positives in Daniel’s life to counter the implacable weight of autism.  These self-imposed pep talks seldom evoke the level of gratitude I believe I should feel, however, or appreciation for the grace I’ve been granted, again and again.  How often have I told myself that what I have, what my son has, should be enough, even as my self-pity shouts me down: “Of course it could be worse!  Of course it could!  But it’s bad enough as it is!”

Slowly, though, I’m emerging from this kind of wallowing.  This past Christmas I realized that, perhaps, I’m making some progress after all.  And I don’t know how I feel about that.  It’s taken me weeks to wrestle my emotions into cohesion.

We brought Daniel home for a day visit on Christmas Eve, an excursion we haven’t attempted in several years.  It’s easier on everyone, including him, to simply celebrate at his group home in Wisconsin, rather than tempt the erratic behavior that makes his living there necessary with transitions back and forth from the environment he’s grown accustomed to over the years.

This year, however, I decided to try again.

The holiday season is not particularly joyful for me, and despite my grim resolve each year to make it so, over the last decade it’s become a period to be endured rather than savored.  Exceptional work demands at the close of last year had me more anxious than ever, and a wise friend urged me to set aside, just this once, a few of the traditions I’ve felt duty bound to maintain, even as they brought more stress than satisfaction.  I tried to take her advice.  Christmas 2016, for instance, marked the first year since my children were born that I didn’t include their photo with my Christmas cards.  And what do you know?  The world survived, just fine.

Maybe this frame of mind helped ratchet down my expectations for Daniel’s visit, let go just a bit of my perfectionism and take the day as it came.  It didn’t have to be perfect; almost certainly it wouldn’t be.  And indeed, it wasn’t.

My Facebook post that afternoon painted an idyllic portrait of family togetherness, drawing supportive comments from my circle of friends.  My daughter, her boyfriend, and their enchanting puppy were home as well; we dined at Denny’s, Daniel’s favorite restaurant, and exchanged gifts around a glowing Christmas tree.

Pictures rarely tell the whole story, of course.

I’d planned to give Daniel his Christmas stocking, bulging with favored treats, before leaving for lunch, but he showed little interest, leaping from the sofa and pointing to the door — “Denneh?  Denneh?” — again and again until we tossed the stocking aside in resignation.

At the restaurant he was allowed soda to his heart’s content, but this did nothing to slake his obsession with the beverage, demanding more as soon as we got back in the car.  Nine years after leaving Illinois, he still remembers the precise location of the grocery store nearest our house, and pointed in its direction as we drove quickly home, praying he wouldn’t wet his pants before we got there, a very real possibility due to his public bathroom aversion.

Back in the living room once again, we tried enticing him with the mountain of merrily wrapped gifts assembled under the tree. He was having none of it.  “Stoar?  Stoar?”  His requests became more belligerent as I tried coaxing him with a sticker book, my well-stocked refrigerator sadly lacking the 16-ounce bottle he apparently had in mind.

“Stoar!”

One photo I posted on Facebook was especially popular, my once-little boy now towering over me, hands on my shoulders, looking deeply into my eyes as I smiled up at him with joy.  It elicited tender comments from far and wide.

“I can see the love in this picture!”

“You are his world!”

“This picture says so much!”

It said plenty, all right.  It said our whole happy Christmas visit had been hijacked by Daniel’s unremitting obsession; that I was desperate for the holiday’s magic to break the vicious hold of autism for just one day.  That as that photo was snapped, he’d just released my chin after pulling my face to his, laser-focusing as he repeated, again and again, “Stoar?  Stoar?  Stoar?”

We gave in.  Armed with a bottle of Coke Zero chosen from the gas station minimart, Daniel finally relaxed, giggling, posing for photos, enjoying time with his family before Andy drove him, happy and willing, back to his Wisconsin home.

It was an exhausting afternoon, another celebration driven by the disorder that has dictated the course of our lives.  But while the day failed to unfold as smoothly as I had hoped, it didn’t crush me as some past Christmas ordeals have done.

I don’t know why this was so.  Was it because my daughter was so obviously happy, or that her boyfriend touched me so deeply with his maturity, his affection and respect for his girlfriend’s special brother?  Was it the joy of their dog Mattie’s exuberance, the fun of having a puppy in the house?  Was it that we made it through lunch at a restaurant without incident, no hapless diner’s soda wrenched from their unsuspecting hands?

Did the positive, this time, simply outweigh the negative?

I can hardly believe it’s that easy, because I don’t do simple very well.  Separating my feelings around Daniel’s disability from the rest of my life is an ongoing challenge; his autism colors everything in my world.  With Daniel’s struggles so blatantly on display, enjoying a festive holiday feels like a betrayal, acceptance a sell out to my own longing for harmony, for normalcy, for simple. Daniel’s reality is my own, and conceding that it is good enough is defeat, like giving up on a Christmas photo.

A mere bottle of soda satisfied my son, but that wasn’t the way I wanted it: I wanted my will for Daniel to prove stronger than his fixation, than his disorder itself.  That kind of transformation doesn’t happen very often with autism.  I know this by now.  I still hope for it, though, unwilling to accept circumstances as they are because they could be, should be, so much better.

Yet this year I felt the grace of truth more powerfully: those circumstances could be worse.

And I hold these truths now as well: Daniel’s smile as he ran from Andy’s car to our back door, beaming, eager to be home again; his delight as Mattie pranced on his bed, licking his hands and face while I tightened his shoelaces and brushed back his hair.  His careful examination of the tree ornaments, touching, tapping, as he did when he was a boy.  His willingness to return at the end of the day to the life he knows now and embraces, untroubled, secure in our bond and our love.

For a few hours on Christmas our family was together.  Imperfect, stumbling, winging it, but together.

And this time — dare I say it? — that was good enough.

by Kristen -

Train Wreck

train

My husband’s parents sold their house last year and moved to a condominium nearby.  We’re relieved that the move is behind them, and they’re no longer burdened by maintaining a home more spacious than they need.

I miss that house, though.  It was stunning.  When Andy and I got married nearly 15 years ago, his parents hosted our reception there, the elegant foyer with its wide, curving stairway providing an idyllic backdrop for toasts and tossing my bouquet.

I remember the first time I took my children to that house, on Christmas Eve a year before Andy and I were married.  I was still getting to know his parents and two sisters then, seeking my place in their family and hoping they liked me as much as I liked them.  They’d met Natalie at a family party the summer before, but were meeting my son for the first time that Christmas Eve.

The evening had all the makings of a magical Christmas, especially for my children.  The house was glowing with lights and decorations, full of welcoming family members eager to include us in their celebration.

The Christmas tree, 14 feet of Fraser Fir soaring in the two-story foyer, rivaled those on display in Marshall Field’s Walnut Room.  A life-sized stuffed tiger with a red ribbon around its neck sat waiting for Daniel under the tree.

Andy’s father had added a new component that year, an electric train set he’d always dreamed of, and set it up to encircle the tree, an engine and six quaint cars chugging along the 25 foot perimeter of the handmade tree skirt.

“We better keep an eye on Daniel around the train,” Andy murmured as we arrived at the house.  “It’s sort of Pop’s pride and joy.”

Wonderful, I thought miserably.  I was already anxious about his family meeting Daniel, my beautiful but erratic little boy, whose unpredictable behavior kept me constantly on edge.  Andy’s parents had no grandchildren, and I imagined my son barreling across their pristine, polished floors, shoes scuffing as he knocked vases from pedestals and grabbed gum drops from antique candy dishes.  Now I had to worry about him breaking an expensive toy train I knew he’d find fascinating.

But it wasn’t only Daniel’s behavior that had me so anxious that evening.  I recognize now how vulnerable I was back then, struggling to find my footing as a divorced mom, a role I’d never dreamed I’d end up playing.  My father had died a year earlier, and my mother was showing the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease.  Keeping my little family together on my own was exhausting, balancing the disparate needs of my children while trying to salvage the stability we’d rob them of when their father and I divorced.

The pressure I put on myself to make this happen was crippling, but I thought that was my role to play.  The least I could do, my most important job in the world, in fact, was making Christmas happy for my children.  Christmas had to be happy, it was supposed to be happy, and I would make it so if it killed me.

But playing my other new role at the same time was almost too much for me: the new girlfriend, this time with kids, one with special needs.  Fiercely proud of my son and daughter, I was still hyper aware of their behavior, and my own, measuring our conduct by a self-imposed standard of respectability and gentility I so wanted to achieve in the eyes of my boyfriend’s gracious family.

As the evening wore on, I was hanging by a thread, smiling, nodding, my most charming self on display for these people whose approval I sought, while inside I was screaming, breaking apart, desperate for this God-forsaken Christmas to be over so I could relax and let my guard down at last.

So much of those early years was like that for me, trying to control the events of my life but often tainting the very memories I wished to cherish.  Holding so tightly to the reins, I sometimes lost sight of where I had wanted to go.  Many times I succeeded in spite of myself, holding it together for my children, providing the experiences I had always wished for them.  But the cost to my psyche was high.  Anxiety became an integral part of me, and letting go of it, especially around the holidays, is still a work in progress.

As it happened, Daniel did enjoy the train that Christmas, watching intently as it made its way around the track, wiggling his fingers in front of his face as he does when he is happy.  He did nothing to disrupt its smooth operation.

But I did.

Leaning close to the tree to admire an ornament, my toe collided with the train’s engine, pushing it and the next three cars off track, bringing the whole happy unit to a halt.  The laugh was on me after all.

And I’m glad.  It was the first real laugh I had all evening.