Speaking in Cursive

Life is Lumpy. A good friend would tell me that all the time.He was right.

I have four sons. All born within four  years.It was a blur, a whirlwind. I often refer to it as my three year coma.I literally can not remember three of those years. I survived on diet coke and no sleep.Not unlike most young moms, I am sure.Trying to do it all and barely doing anything.Before I knew it, they were all in school.And that is when our life changed forever.

When my twins were in kindergarten we received a call that our son Brett was having a seizure. Seizure? What? We hadn’t noticed anything before, we knew he was behind in some areas, but never did we notice a seizure.(Of course, now, when we look back, the signs were there.) As it turned out, that would be the least of our worries.Not only was Brett diagnosed with epilepsy, but eventually Autism.How on Gods green earth did we miss it? How were we going to survive this?

I like to say “if I don’t laugh I am going to cry” and that pretty much became my motto of parenting. I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. The doctor appointments, the specialists. The testing, the I.E.P’s, the meltdowns. Hearing the doctor tell you things your child may never be able to do, or learn. It is heartbreaking. It is not what you envisioned for your child, or frankly, for yourself. You  grieve for what YOU had planned for your child. Instead, you learn to accept the child you have been blessed with. That step doesn’t come easy or happen overnight.But trust me, it does come.

Here we are now, Brett and his twin brother Bryce having just turned 20.Things are very different for them.While Bryce is finishing his sophomore year away at college, Brett lives at home with us.We are struggling to find the “right” situation for him. Right job, right case workers, right everything.It is a daily struggle, to keep him on task of basic things.And it is a tightrope that  I walk daily to know just how to deal with him and everything and everyone that is involved in helping him.When your three other adult sons have moved out, and done what is typical, it shines the light even brighter on the son left behind.The other three all moved out in the summer of 2014, within three weeks of each other. My oldest, Tony,  graduated from college and accepted a job in China.Yes, China. Our second oldest Nathan, graduated from college and moved an hour away. (Come fall he is moving across the country.) And Bryce, left for college, where he has been on the Deans list all four semesters.Two of the three have serious girlfriends.They are doing what is “supposed” to be done.So sometimes, the grieving rears it’s ugly head again. I get mad, and I cry.I want everything for Brett, that his brothers have.I want him to be “normal”. Then, as quickly as those ugly feelings bubble up to the surface, Brett says or does something to snap me back into reality.He is the funniest human alive, he makes me cry from laughter He is Normal….his normal.And his normal is perfect.