3:30 a.m. I heard Aaron stirring, then walking up the hall to the bathroom. He closed the bathroom door with a thump because he never, ever closes doors quietly. Soon the bathroom door opened, but instead of walking back up the hall to his room I heard our bedroom door open.
“Mom?” Aaron said in as much of a whisper as he can ever muster. Whispering seems to be a lost art with him.
“Mom?” he repeated. I answered him and he continued.
“Can you come to my room? I need to talk to you about something.”
So I followed Aaron to his bedroom, where he wanted to turn on the light so that he could talk better.
“Mom. I had a nightmare. I dreamed that you and dad made me go live in a support home because I was mean.”
So that would explain what I had heard him speaking in his sleep earlier……something about wondering if someone would come up to his room to see him. We talked about his nightmare, as he called it. He has such a fear of ever having to leave our home. No matter how we approach that subject it never goes over well. But we hadn’t talked about it at all the night before, or even at all recently, so I don’t know where the dream came from. But it greatly bothered Aaron, enough for him to call it a nightmare.
We talked for a few minutes and I assured him that everything was fine, and not to worry about us making him move because he was mean. But it is important not to be mean, I had to add. And with that I made sure he was all the way in his bed, said goodnight, and turned off his light.
He was up before 8:00. He walked into the kitchen looking a little worse for wear.
“Mom,” he immediately said. “I don’t feel good. My head hurts. I feel weak.”
I tried to encourage him, but finally he brought up the real issue of the nightmare. He decided that this awful experience should earn him a day off from Paradigm, but he saw right away that I disagreed. I exuded cheerful optimism, which he tired hard to override with his dreary post-nightmare pessimism. We were in that familiar tug-of-war.
A shower and three cups of coffee helped a little, but Aaron had decided that he was not going to Paradigm. I always leave the final choice up to him, but he knows the consequences of not going. I told him that we would run down to get him a haircut, which he loves, but after the haircut he was still pretty firm about staying home.
I agreed to take him home and then told him that I was running my errands. After that, I said, I would be busy all day getting ready to leave tomorrow on an out-of-town trip for Gary and me. By the time we pulled into our driveway, he was happier and I was on the phone. He opened his door and in a flash, my door opened and there stood Aaron……holding something for me.
“Here, Mom!” he tried to whisper. “I picked you this flower. I picked it because I love you and I’m going to Paradigm.”
Then he handed me the flower, bent over to lean in the van, and gave me a HUG!!
You could have blown me away!! Kind of like the little seed pods on the flower he gave me. You see, his “flower” was this:
But he was as proud of this old dandelion as he would have been if he was holding a dozen roses. And trust me, I was too! This bent over, half bald seeded dandelion was what Aaron saw first and so pluck it he did……for Mom!
After I got off the quick phone call, I thanked and thanked Aaron for the flower. He just beamed. He got his glasses and his watch and his wallet, and off we went to Paradigm. I think his morning there was a little tricky, but the rest of the day seemed to go well.
It’s a good thing I don’t have allergies, because I’ve kept my special flower in the kitchen all day. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s the best Aaron had. It would have been understandable for me to not want this sad sample of a flower. To maybe throw it away when Aaron wasn’t at home.
But I keep thinking about how the best Aaron had to give me was…..well…..not what we would call great, but it was from his heart and that makes it totally awesome. That’s so often what Aaron does and is, all through the days of his life. We may not get exemplary behavior every day…..we may not see stellar progress on most days…..we may not even take the time to notice how hard he tries on other days.
But for Aaron, it’s there. His attempts to fit in, to express himself, to understand this world we live in with him, are there. Some days the best we get is for him to ask if I’m happy that he didn’t make “farting noises” with his mouth in the store, but he made “meow” noises instead. Or that he didn’t clap SUPER loud or clap too AWFULLY many times. Or that he didn’t get 10 toothpicks at the welcome counter at the restaurant…..only 4!
He so wants us to be proud of him. He so wants to conquer his inability to communicate what’s really on his mind…..what’s really bothering him……what’s in that heart of his. But it’s just so nearly impossible sometimes for him to do that……to talk like you and I do. He might react, like he did this morning. He might hit or slam a door or be defiant. But I’m convinced that part of the frustration that Aaron feels is not that he’s mad at the situation….he’s mad at how very hard it is for him to identify and express to us just what he’s mad about.
So whatever he is able to share, we must take it gladly and try to understand. We must grasp what he hands us and take care to handle it well. Just like my dandelion flower. Would I have chosen it? No. But Aaron did, and with it he showed me his love. To me that gangly old dandelion is beautiful. It represents Aaron’s heart.
I hope that when he sees it sitting on the table, or maybe later in a vase, he’ll know that Mom not only loved his gift……he’ll know that Mom loves HIM.
He Said What?! 