By now it was safe to say that I had accepted that I didn't have "normal" "typical" "normal" children. The jury was still out on Savannah and maybe that was God's way of giving me a breather because Sean was all I could handle at the time. He sucked the living joy out of me each week until my Girl's Night Out with Pat and Friends. I lived for the weekend. TGIF&S!!
I was really struggling with the "whys" in my life. It wasn't so much about me as much as it was about my children and their challenges. I often thought back to when Savannah was born when my reaction to seeing her for the first time was so troubling to me. The pain of that day was always so vivid. I had brief moments of feeling like I had had a premonition but blew it off by saying that this is life and all people suffer with something and heartache is a part of living. I was constantly measuring my life by the life of others. I was always reassuring myself by thinking and often saying out loud, "It could be worse. It could be worse, couldn't it?"
Mothers fix things, damn it! Mothers protect their children and they do it quickly - not over the course of many years. I wanted Savannah and Sean to be normal. I wanted my marriage to be happy. I wanted positive answers for the numerous questions my friends and strangers always asked me about autism. I wanted God to explain to me why I was chosen. I cursed Him when he didn't. I shook my fist. I raised hell and then some. I needed Him to fix my kids. I needed him to fix me.
My inner dialog kept me confused. I was always so confused.
What Goes Up Must Come Down
(Peace in the Valley)
Like boulders lifting peaks,
capped in an avalanche-waiting-to-happen,
(frozen in the pose of
afraid-to-move)
I, too, stand under a freak-of-nature
that's made my son
the king-of-the-hill.
He shakes the peace-in-the-valley
with his rain(man) stick,
makes it known that
life-isn't-perfect and
all-is-well
only in Heaven
where the lion-and-the-lamb
sleep with Goliath,
who once made certain there was
no-rest-for-the-weary,
quickly discovered though,
the-meek-shall-inherit-the-earth.
The peak-of-my-experience
loads his slingshot with his
diamonds-in-the-rough,
slays the blessing-in-disguise.
He comes down the hill as the
Little-Boy-Blue,
plays Gabriel's Song.
The sheep graze in peace
and the wolf goes home.
copyright 1999, Peggy Putnam Owen
