Lessons From the Dry Times

 

I was tired of looking at them……….the dried up remnants of my once bright and beautiful flowers in my two little flower beds off the back patio.  The extreme summer drought and heat had taken its toll on my flowers and had turned their former glory into black ugliness.  Long gone were the cheery yellows of the Black-Eyed Susans; the pretty pink of the Coneflowers; the stunning orange of the Tiger Lilies; and the soft purple of the Garden Phlox.  It was time to do some trimming………trimming that is usually left until autumn but was necessary now, in August.
 
 
Taking my pruning shears and my garden gloves, I headed outside and was soon filling up my pop-up container with the dry, dusty remains of my flowers.  As I clipped, I wondered if any of these perennials would return next spring, even as I noticed places that were already bare – where death had already sunk deep into the roots and destroyed the visible plants as well.  Two summers of severe dryness and burning sun had indeed claimed many flowers and trees and vegetables.  Even with what watering we did, nothing could replace refreshing rain and kinder, cooler temperatures. 
 
My garden shoes crunched over the brittle mulch as I bent over to cut away the deadness.  And as I clipped the useless remnants of my flowers, I noticed that even in the seemingly lifeless garden, some creatures and plants continued to live.  Here and there were weeds……..a chickweed growing against the brick border……….a clump of crab grass nestled in the dry mulch.  How do weeds manage to live even in the midst of such drought?  Around me I saw grasshoppers lunging up as I disturbed their hiding places.  As if my struggling flowers needed any other detriments to their growth, I thought.  Those ugly grasshoppers would eat any remaining life out of these poor flowers for sure.    The life that I was seeing in my flower garden was not the kind that I wanted to see at all!
 
 
Yet as my shears stripped away the dull remains of my flowers, I saw some color.  There, nestled amidst the blackness, was the welcome sight of a yellow Black-Eyed Susan; a bright pink little Coneflower; a softer pink Garden Phlox.  They were both a reminder of what had once been and the hope of what could very possibly come again next spring.   Dryness and death doesn’t have to be the norm, I thought.  There is always hope that the rains will come again; that the sun will be kinder; that replanting or reseeding can occur.  In the meantime, here and there a flower still grew, and the purpose of these seemingly dead plants was evident in the midst of awful circumstances. 
 
I’ve experienced dry times in my life.  We all have those seasons…………or will have if we live long enough.  Prolonged stresses and disappointments just suck the life and the beauty out of our very souls.  Days are long and nights are longer.  The heat of our worries and trials beats us down, blacken our outlook, and steal our joy.  There seems to be no evident end in sight………no welcome rain cloud to provide moisture or to shield us from the sun’s burning rays.  And in our weakest moments, we see weeds sprouting up around us………..weeds of worry, of bitterness, of anger, of blame, of defeat.  Or the hopping grasshoppers of our thought life, hopping to this conclusion or to that decision that is not in God’s plan for us at all. 
 
David experienced these desert seasons as he ran from King Saul.  Here was the future king of Israel, appointed by God, yet hiding in caves and running for his life.  He was falsely accused, thrust out, tormented, and unwanted – with no end in sight to his suffering.  In Psalm 63, David poured out his heart:  “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for you; my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  What did David do in that dry and weary land in which he found himself?  Did he worry, complain, become bitter, or throw a royal fit?  No!  He sought God earnestly – and not for what God could do for him, but because of WHO God is.  He thirsted and yearned for God, “……to see Your power and Your glory.”

 

How did David seek God?  “Because Your loving kindness (grace) is better than life, My lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live;  I will lift up my hands in Your Name.”  (Psalm 63:3-4)   David took action!  He didn’t sit there and allow ugly weeds or grasshoppers to clutter his soul.  He used his lips to praise God and he lifted his hands in worship of God.   He opened the way for God’s beauty to fill his being even in the midst of a dry desert and a dark cave.  Just as my little blooming flowers shone in my ugly flower bed, so David’s praise and worship was a shining light in his own heart and to those around him…………a light to reveal the great God Who loves us and delights in our praise even in the dry seasons of our lives…………..ESPECIALLY in those dry seasons!
 
It’s up to us…………..will it be ugly weeds and destructive grasshoppers?  Or will we lift our hands in worship and open our mouths in praise in the middle of the heat and dryness of our prolonged trials?     (Psalm 63:5)

How Funny?

What a difference a day makes!  Aaron has been very happy today.  He and I have both laughed at some of his antics, and I’ve laughed at some of the things he has said.  I don’t know if it’s good night’s sleep he had; the seizure he had at 2:30 this morning that rearranged some of those neurons; looking forward to his trip to the mall today and the food fest that usually occurs; or a change in the weather that’s on the way…………but he’s been happy and lots of fun this morning.

It began when I went into his room to get him out of bed………..and his bed was empty.  He hasn’t played this trick in awhile, but I know what an empty bed and closed door usually means.  It means that Aaron is hiding from me, just like a kid would do.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that he was hiding in his closet because the door was slightly ajar………..and Aaron never allows the door to be partly open, even a crack.  So I opened the door and there he was, laying on the floor like someone in a crime scene.  He was very droll about this unusual sight of a grown man crammed into a little closet, laying on the floor, but he was also very pleased with himself for his brilliant hiding place.

He successfully drank his coffee outside as he sat in the mulch doing his “mulch thing.”  No spills today on his white shirt.  Yay!  Then on the way to meet his group, he said, “Mom, it was funny that I fell yesterday when I spilled my coffee.”

No, Aaron, it wasn’t funny.  It was scary that you fell.

And he said, “Well, it was half funny then!”

There he goes with that half business again, which makes him totally funny to me………..and I laughed and he wondered what I thought was so funny as I patted his leg………….and told him that HE’S the funny one.  No response, as usual, to that comment.

Talk then went to policemen and I have no idea why.  “Mom, there are different kinds of policemen, right?”

Right, Aaron.  “Well, which one is it that’s the country cop?”

The country cop?  So as I dropped Aaron off I’m still not sure if the country cop is the state policeman or the sheriff……………because Aaron hasn’t quite figured this out yet.

And as usual, I’m trying to figure Aaron out as well as country cops.  I have the whole day ahead to do this!  And that’s a good thing.

Throw ON the Towel!

Here we go again.  I heard it from upstairs…….the sound of the plastic containers full of coffee hitting the floor and then the thump.  My heart sank as I hurried downstairs to check on Aaron.  He was fine, although sprawled on the floor with spilled coffee all around him.   He jerked and dropped his coffee yet again………lukewarm coffee, thankfully.  And thankfully he didn’t throw his coffee containers as he has been known to do when he’s in a rage. This was a true accident, but messy and discouraging none the less.

I was frustrated with Aaron this morning over a couple things already and this didn’t help, believe me.  My compassion for him still hasn’t quite kicked in yet.  He has cleaned up and showered, and seems to be fine.  I hope he’s not bruised.

I just stood and looked at this mess………coffee all over the floor, the cabinets, on and under the frig.  UGH!  And I thought of how many times I’ve just felt like throwing in the towel.  We all do, don’t we, whether we are parents or not.  But we can’t quit.  God doesn’t and we can’t.  Especially as parents……….these children are given to us by God and He wants us to hang in there despite how tough it sometimes is.

So instead of throwing IN the towel, we throw ON a towel.  We clean the messes up step by step, bit by bit. We’ll see progress one day, even if it’s slow to come…………even when we just stand there and don’t know where to start.  God gives patience; and God gives us the same grace toward our children or others that He has extended to us.  We clean up the messes, whatever they may be, and we push forward.

The rest of the day is before us.  It’s up to me now not to mess up my reactions and my attitudes.  I’ll need to grab another towel if I’m not careful!

It’s All About Me

A very unpleasant and unattractive trait of Asperger’s Syndrome is the tendency to be very egocentric.  Dear old Aaron shows this side of himself every single day…………some days and some situations more than others.  His inability to manage his emotions and his self-focus can be extremely frustrating at times.

Mom!  I’m hungry!
Mom!  I’m tired!
Mom!  I’m bored!
Mom!  I’m sleepy!
Mom!  I’m curious!
Mom!  I’m awake!
Mom!  I’m cold!
Mom!  I’m hot!

It can be wearying sometimes for Gary and I.  We often try to bring Aaron’s attention to the needs of others and to how someone other than himself is feeling.  Aaron is rarely affected by this attempt………..but when he does show concern for others, and especially for Gary or me, it certainly does touch our hearts.  I’ve written about that when I talked about the hug he gave me one night when I was sick or the bandaid he brought me when I hurt myself.  Those moments are all the more precious to us because we know that they come from a place deep inside Aaron that we rarely see.

Last night we did not see a very caring attitude.  I had come upstairs to get ready for bed.  Aaron got very excited about a video from You Tube that he wanted to show me.  Even though I was tired, I agreed to watch the video, which was an old music video of Billy Joel’s song Uptown Girl.  Aaron loves this song and he was as tickled as he could be to share this video with me.  He giggled and clapped and kept turning to look at my reaction as we watched this video.  He really was hilarious with his reaction and I was laughing along with him, but not for the same reasons that he was laughing.  We even watched another video of a second song.  It was a fun way to end our day.

Just as Aaron turned the video off, Gary came up the stairs………..also very tired and walking slowly because of his aching back.  Of course, Aaron wanted to show Dad the Uptown Girl video and of course Gary just really wanted to go to bed.  But Gary came back to Aaron’s room and stood there through the whole video, aching back and all, enjoying the moment with us and laughing as I did at Aaron’s delighted reaction.  Then it was time for goodnights and sleep well and love you, Aaron…………..except not for Aaron, who wanted Dad to also watch that second video.  But Gary said no, and explained that it was late, even as I was telling Aaron that Dad’s back really was hurting and that he needed to go on to bed.

Aaron didn’t care at all about our tiredness, or the lateness of the hour, and certainly not about the fact that his Dad’s back was hurting.  His full focus was on that second video that he wanted Gary to watch.  We went on our way to our bedroom, but I came out later to answer a question of Aaron’s and found that he was escalating upwards in his anger.  According to Aaron, Dad didn’t care and Dad was mean………..even as I calmly reminded Aaron that Dad had watched the video that Aaron really wanted to show him and that Dad had laughed and that Dad had answered Aaron’s questions about the video…………yet none of this mattered to Aaron.  He was focused on what Dad had NOT done instead of what he HAD done.

Then I explained to Aaron that Dad’s back was hurting and that he needed to lay down, but Aaron actually said these words, “Why should I care?”  As I reminded Aaron of who had upgraded his computer recently and who had gotten him a new chair and who had done this and done that for him……….I could see Aaron softening a little but still being belligerent because his immediate desire had not been fulfilled.  His selfishness was on full display, ugly as it was, but in Aaron’s unfiltered world it was out there for all to see.

This whole scene reminds me so starkly of my relationship to the Lord.  How self-serving and demanding I can sometimes be with the One Who loves me so much!  God gives me blessing after blessing, but how often do I focus on what I don’t have or on what I perceive as unanswered prayer?  How many times do I not stop to thank Him for what He has done in so many areas of my life personally or in this world in general?  Do I praise Him and acknowledge His faithfulness and His power and His love?  Or do I whine and complain and stay self-focused?  God has dealt with me over the years about these very issues……..about the importance of praise and worship in my prayer life………of seeking His will in my requests and not my own will………..of the attitude of gratefulness that we are reminded of so often in scripture.

Even as we try to patiently understand and continually work with Aaron on being less “it’s all about me”, so I know that God looks down in love on Patty and must sigh at my self-centeredness.  When I see Him in that light, I feel like His child for sure and I am very thankful that He is a long suffering and loving Father to me.

We’ll keep working with Aaron………….and God will keep working with us.

Sign Your Name, Aaron

Aaron was in the second grade in the American school on our military post in Germany when he came home one day and pulled a paper out of his pocket.  I never knew what he would pull out of those pockets of his, so a simple piece of folded paper made me feel very relieved.  He handed it to me and as I unfolded it, I saw that he had written his name……..in cursive.  I was pleased, yes, but also very surprised because I knew that the teacher wasn’t allowing her students to learn cursive until the second semester.  It was still autumn and far from the time for Aaron to “officially” learn cursive. 

I asked him about this and asked him why he had his name written in cursive.  He replied, “I was bored so I taught myself cursive.”   Inside, I was smiling proudly, even as outwardly I asked him why he was bored and how he had managed to teach himself cursive.  He told me that he just looked at the sample cursive letters on the wall and started writing, even as the class was going over something for the umpteenth time that he already knew and was not the least bit interested in.  Is it any wonder that we started home schooling the next year?

Aaron’s writing now, at the age of 27, is very similar to his first self-taught writing skills.  He writes very much like an elementary student……….but he does write and he is fairly adept at spelling, too.  I guess his favorite thing to still write, after all these years, is his name.  I’ve found his name written in all sorts of places………….walls, furniture, books, his skin.  You get the idea. 
  

When he was in the school system here after he turned 16, he had to sign his name on all sorts of official papers and reports, such as IEP meetings.  Now he still places his signature on the paperwork we sign yearly for his BASIS assessments and PCSP papers, as well as some store receipts.   We never know how Aaron is going to sign something.  Here is a normal signature when he was having a mellow day.

On this signature he decided to have some flair and try to be fancy.

Notice the date beside this signature and what he wrote beside it.  He was in a holiday mood for sure!  So funny!

I wish I had his signature as he has also written it……………where he would sign his name and then add his favorite description of himself.  It came out like this – Aaron Moore… is cool!  I loved that one and wish I had a copy of it.

What also makes us smile is that when we tell Aaron to sign something personal, like a birthday card, he does indeed sign it…………with his “official” signature.  When I told him to sign Gary’s birthday card and to label the envelope, this is what we ended up with:

Nothing personal………….not even the word “love”………….unless we mention it.  In Aaron’s black and white world, when you tell him to sign something, he signs it…….with his full signature.  And puts Dad’s name on the card…………his legal name…………not “Dad.”

Warm and fuzzy Aaron, right?  That would be Aaron Moore to you and me and the rest of the world, thank you. 

RIGID Potato Chips

I know I sound like a broken record……….very similar to Aaron, actually………..but I tell you, Aaron notices everything.  The tiniest details of the world around him rarely escape his attention.  And then he talks about what he has observed.  He also never seems to tire of noticing the same things over and over again, and talking about them over and over again.

For instance, I know that when we drive by the pasture near our house, Aaron will always look for the cows.  He will often ask if the cows are out and if they’re not out, then where are they?  He will also ask who we think the cows belong to?  The man in the white house or someone else?  A couple miles on up the road we always pass another field on our way to meet Aaron’s day group.  This field has big black bulls who sometimes are grazing where we can see them as we drive by.  Aaron is fascinated by the bulls.  One day we had an interesting conversation about the purpose of bulls.  Ahem.  He did NOT seem to notice how quickly I glossed over that answer!  Anyway, nearly every day as we drive by that field, Aaron will wonder if the bulls are out and if they’re not out……….and they often are not in sight………..he wonders where they are, and why they aren’t out, and where do they stay.  Recently we drove by the field and there they were, close to the fence, grazing happily.  Aaron exclaimed, “There’s the bulls!  They’re out of that farm cage thing!”

Um, Aaron, that’s a pasture…………..not a bull zoo.

On up the road we pass a dentist’s office.  Aaron loves their concrete parking barriers.  Why does he love those particular concrete barriers?  Because they are painted in stripes!  They stand out to Aaron as unique and he loves anything unique.  And how many times have I heard him say, “There they are, Mom!  Candy canes!!”

He notices the old car that’s always parked in some one’s driveway every day.  He’s fascinated with RVs…………..”Mom are they expensive because they’re portable houses?”  And yesterday he excitedly said, “Mom, guess what I saw on the way home?  I saw an RV towing its OWN car!  Is it OK for an RV to tow its own car?!”  I try to explain these important matters to him, even as I’m distracted with supper preparations or some other chore……..and he won’t leave until he’s satisfied with my answer.  Therefore, I know that I need to do my best to answer him or to explain things, or he will stay there until I do.  Or until I tell him to Google it!

Yesterday he was very enthused as he told me about the fun thing that someone made at Paradigm using Chex cereal and chocolate and this and that………but he couldn’t remember what it was called.  I told him it sounded like Puppy Chow and he said, “Yes!  That’s it!  And it was all covered with confectionate sugar!”  So I showed him some confectioner’s sugar, which he thought was wonderful, and then as he pointed out the white marks all over his shorts, he said, “That confectionate sugar is spready!”

Yep, Aaron………..looks like to me you spread it all over your shorts.

But he wasn’t through with the rundown of his meal at Paradigm.  “Mom, I ate some mustard potato salad.  And then I had some of those potato chips………you know, those RIGID potato chips!”

Ah, yes, ridged potato chips!

“Yeah.  I don’t like RIGID potato chips!”

What?!  You don’t like potato chips with ridges?

“No.  They look like they have speed bumps that are on the road.”

I would never, ever have thought that the ridges on potato chips look like speed bumps on the road.  But Aaron does……….because Aaron notices every RIGID ridge on those ridged chips………….and he notices every speed bump………..and he notices that they are very much alike.

Amazing!

Ruffles Have RIGID Speed Bumps!!  Buy some today!  But slow down and watch your teeth!

Leave Me Alone!

Aaron’s been hard to rouse out of bed for the past several days.  I keep the monitor on at night and haven’t heard any seizures so I don’t think it’s seizure related.  Maybe he’s staying up too late reading at night.  Or maybe it’s because we take his keyboard away at night and so he doesn’t have the excitement of a game to wake up to each morning.

He also wakes up talking about very tired he is.  Last week he said, “Mom, I slipped out of bed at 6:17.”

You slipped out of bed?    “Yes!  I was on the edge and then I just slipped out!”  I asked him if his sheets were slippery but he didn’t react to that like others might have.  Sometimes I think I’m quite funny but Aaron rarely thinks I’m quite funny……….which I also find to be quite funny, actually.  His lack of reaction to my jokes really is hilarious sometimes.

Back to his slipping out of bed…………..I said, “So you mean that you FELL out of bed?”

“Yeah, I slipped out of bed.  Have you ever slipped out of bed?”  Well, Aaron, I have slipped out of bed but not the way that you slipped out of bed.  I actually slipped out of bed whereas you actually fell out of bed, obviously, etc., etc., etc.  I had this conversation with myself, by the way – not with Aaron.  He would not have valued it like I did, believe me.

This morning he was snug under his covers and did not appreciate my efforts to get him up.  I was kind; I was soft spoken; I didn’t linger long or have many words…………in other words, I did everything possible to ease him into this cruel reality that he was going to have to get out of bed. When I have to go in and wake him up, he’s often grouchy.  When he gets up on his own terms then he’s usually in a better mood.    Finally, I walked past his bedroom and on my way downstairs I simply told him that I was going to pour his coffee and get him a bowl of his favorite applesauce.  Soon I heard him laboring down the stairs and as he walked into the kitchen, I tried to ignore him and be unaffected by his grouchy face.  It’s better to be low-key when Aaron is grumpy.  I fixed his applesauce, laid out his comics, and poured his coffee………..all while listening to him tell me once again about how tired he was and that he didn’t want to be bothered.

OK, Aaron, I’m going back upstairs to finish getting ready.  Off I went, knowing that he wanted to be alone…………or at least ACTED like he wanted to be alone.  He polished off his applesauce quickly, and soon I heard him laboring back up the stairs.  And Aaron, who wanted to be left alone and not to be bothered because he was so tired, walked into my bathroom where I was getting ready.  He was carrying his coffee, which he carefully placed on the bathroom counter.  He sat down beside his coffee, getting settled and comfortable in the room with the person that he didn’t want to be around, according to him.  He sat there looking at me as I just ignored him and kept getting ready.  I didn’t say a word.  He slurped some coffee.  He wiggled into an even more comfy position.  He slurped some more coffee.  He watched me closely and I just kept quiet, not acknowledging him in any way.

Finally he broke the silence and said, “I wish you would just leave me alone.”

Seriously, Aaron?  So why did YOU come up the stairs and why did YOU come in my bathroom and why did YOU sit down here and why did YOU settle here to slurp your coffee………..but you wish that I would leave YOU alone?  Oh, never mind.  Another conversation with myself!  I talk to myself a lot around Aaron, and he doesn’t even know it.

The fact is, he doesn’t really want to be left alone and ignored, no matter how much he tries to act like he does.   Leave me alone, Mom…………but don’t really leave me alone.  Don’t really ignore me.

And as he showed me once again this morning, even when I’m really trying to ignore him, he won’t let me!  He can’t verbalize like you and I can, but he does manage to get his message across.

I can get my message across, too.  Tomorrow I may just show him what it means to be PUSHED out of bed!

Am I Getting Muscles?

Those of you who have followed Aaron for a long time know that he talks a lot about his weight.  He makes many comments about losing weight, such as, “Mom, am I losing weight?”………..even as he’s cramming his fifth croissant roll into his mouth from the stash he bought at Wal-Mart.  Or, “Mom, have I lost weight?”……….as he turns to look sideways in the mirror.  Or one of my favorites:  “Mom, am I halfway losing weight?”  Many of us adopted that statement as our mantra when I first publicized it…………we’re all halfway losing weight!!

Aaron does love to eat, though, like most of us do – and so his desire to lose weight is offset by his desire to eat.  He makes excuses for what he eats, like the time I made Rice Krispie treats and he asked if he could have one.  Before I knew it, he was walking across the kitchen with a huge stuck-together Rice Krispie treat square.  “Wait a minute, Aaron!” I declared.  “What on earth are you doing?”   And he replied, “Mom, I was just trying to pull one off and it did this!”

So you couldn’t correct what it did, Aaron?  How convenient!

Or the time the staff at his day group fixed burritos and Aaron was excited to tell me all about it.  “Mom!  Today they fixed burritos!  They did this thing that if you ate one then you could have another one!”

Really, Aaron?  How many did you have?  He answered, very flatly, “I had four.”  FOUR?  You had FOUR burritos?  Good grief!

Then another meal at Paradigm featured some garlic cheese bread on the side.  Of course, we heard his assessment of that when he got home.  “Mom, we had some mushy bread at Paradigm today.  It had garlic and cheese on it.”  I told him that this bread sounded yummy despite the fact that he thought it was mushy.  He said, “Well, I didn’t like that mushy bread but I ate a bunch of it.”

Why does he eat a bunch of something he doesn’t like anyway?!

Aaron is specific about his food, such as when I was serving him some mashed potatoes.  “Mom, I want the gravy INSIDE the potatoes.”  It’s funny how well I understand him…………kind of scary, too.

So this morning Aaron strolled into my bathroom as I fixed my hair.  He had just showered and I was not prepared to see him walk in wearing only his underwear.  Modesty is not his strong point, no matter how often we stress that is should be.  As I said, “Well, Aaron!” ………..and he was totally unaffected by my exclamation………..I realized that he was on a mission.  I assumed we were about to have another “am I losing weight?” conversation, when instead he said, “Mom?  Am I getting muscles?”  He then bent his arm and flexed his muscles, and stood there waiting for my answer.

How on earth do I not laugh out loud when my grown son is standing there in his favorite striped briefs, flexing his arm and asking me if he has muscles?  Well, I did laugh and he smiled but still waited for my answer as he continued:  “Am I getting strong?  I wanted your opinion.”  I had no idea that Aaron ever thought about the manly trait of being strong.  I’m still wondering where this all came from.

In the meantime, Aaron, you want my opinion?   Yes, you are getting strong.  That’s why I had you carry the big bag of dog food out to the van for me on Saturday.  He was pleased with that answer, even as I was coming to grips with this new side of my boy who is really a man.

You want another opinion?  Please put your shorts on…….your carpenter shorts!  Spare me the sight of you flexing your muscles standing there in your underwear.

It’s enough to make me lose weight, and not just halfway!

Answering the Question

Aaron asks lots of questions.  Some questions he asks over and over again, and we know that he will continue to ask them over and over again as long as the sun rises and sets.  Sometimes Aaron wants to talk things to death, on and on and on.  Yet when it comes to most of the questions he asks us, he simply wants a simple answer.  Concise and to the point.  Gary and I know this, but do we always follow what we know?  Of course not!  But Aaron will remind us, that’s for sure!

Yesterday Aaron was anxious to play a game on the computer.  We had taken the keyboard away for awhile as we do every day, and had also taken that particular game away because of behaviors the night before.  Aaron went outside to ask Gary if he could have the keyboard back and the answer was yes.  But then Aaron asked if he could have that particular game back, and the answer wasn’t so simple.

Gary wanted to emphasize to Aaron once again the reason we had taken the game away…………what we expected from him if we gave him the game back…………and several other points that were well worth making – except that Aaron was totally uninterested in this long answer.  He quickly became lost in all the words even as he tried to focus and to listen.  I heard Aaron take advantage of several pauses in Gary’s answer to ask again, “But Dad, can I play that game?”  And still the answer continued.  I listened, knowing exactly where Aaron was going mentally with all of this.

Finally Aaron had heard enough and he burst out, “Dad!  You’re not answering my question the way that I’m asking it!!”

Once again Aaron yanked us back to reality and made us smile.  How many times do we do that, I wondered, whether with Aaron or with others?  And I know there are times that I wish I had the freedom to blurt that statement out to someone who is not answering my question the way that I asked it!!

I won’t say that to Aaron, though, because so often in his random answers to our questions we learn so much about what makes his amazing mind function the way that it does.

Coming Up For Air

This is the time of year when many moms and dads are experiencing what Gary and I have gone through this week – saying goodbye to an adult child who is going to college or moving away for a job or has gotten married or any number of other scenarios.  Our daughter, Andrea, was accepted into the graduate program at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center and will pursue her master’s………….and probably PhD……….in Forensic Genetics.  Can you tell that we’re proud of her?  She has been so patient to wait on God’s timing for this big decision, and in the past six months He definitely opened some amazing doors in order for her to move in this direction now.

But she is still our little girl in our hearts in many ways, even as we’ve seen her mature and assume major responsibilities over the past few years.  She went straight from college into a job as an EMT in an inner city emergency room, handling all sorts of traumas and stresses with her quiet strength.  Then she spent a calmer year as an assistant to a Sports Medicine doctor in a normal clinic setting.  And for the past six months, she worked as a Microbiologist in a pharmaceutical lab.  All of these experiences helped confirm to her what she felt like God wanted her to do………which was none of the above!  Her acceptance into grad school came at just the right time in very many ways, and we are all very pleased and thankful.

It was still heart wrenching to drive away from her this past week and watch her walk back to her apartment while we traveled back home without her.  She has lived an hour away for the past six months, and that was good preparation for her and for us.  But now she’s far enough away that those weekend visits won’t happen like they used to.  Distance and the demands of school will make our visits far fewer and farther between than we’ve ever had before.  I know that we appreciate technology now, too, more than we ever have before!  She and her brother Andrew are only a text or a Skype session away………but still…………

All this leaving business leaves me drained………fragile………unbalanced.  And very emotional.  But truly, as I knew it would, the feelings are becoming easier to manage.  I remember when Andrew left for college.  For his first year, he was only 40 miles away but as I said goodbye to him I cried as if I was leaving him in Alaska.  He awkwardly patted me as we hugged and he said, “Uh, Mom…….I’m only 40 miles away.”  Kids just don’t understand a mother’s heart!  I smile now, and I so remember the actual physical dizziness I felt for several days after he left.  When our children leave, we seem to lose part of our purpose and our routine, and the hole left in our heart makes it hard to stand up straight and breathe.  But we must breathe and we must go on and we must function.  Somehow we do.  God is faithful that way as he enables us to go forward in His strength.

And then Gary and I have Aaron.  Good old blunt Aaron.  Not just blunt, either………..but verbalizing this whole goodbye process as he tries to come to grips with the fact that his sister has moved so far away.  Distance is relative to Aaron.  He can’t touch it or see it, so it’s hard for him to grasp.  When Andrea lived an hour away, he was used to her coming home on Saturdays and spending the night.  Still he would often ask, “Mom, is Andrea coming over on Saturday?”

The other day, after we had returned from taking her to Texas, Aaron asked his familiar question.  “Mom, is Andrea coming over on Saturday?”

No, Aaron.  She isn’t coming over on Saturday.

“On Friday is Andrea coming?”

No, not on Friday, either.

He persisted.  “But can’t there be any other days that she can visit?”

I reminded him of the map we had examined and that her new home is now too far away for many visits.

And the final reality.  “No more coming to visit?  Is that it?”

Oh Aaron.  I managed to keep from crying and I assured him that we would see her………….just not as often………..and he walked away with not another word, trying to absorb this new part of his life.

I can’t wait for his first Skype experience with his sister……….to see and hear how he’ll react.  Knowing Aaron, he’ll just laugh uncomfortably and then launch into the kinds of things he launched into at breakfast with Gary and I.   It’ll be all about him and his interests, but that’s what we expect and that’s what makes us laugh.  As he told me this morning, “Mom, I was watching a Looney Tunes video last night before bed and I was laughing so hard my eyes became watery!”

I know, Aaron.  My eyes are watery lately, too!  And it’s not always because I’m laughing, but it’s OK.  I’m breathing and I’m thankful for all of my children…………and I’m very much looking forward to the next time that they can come over for a visit!!