To Reach As High As You Can

I hate change, I hate goodbyes, I pretty much do not like to have to deal with and sort through all my feelings until I can successfully navigate a “new normal”  Having said that, life is full of change, and even though I may hate it, I have learned to deal with it. Sometimes a few tears later, sometimes a chocolate concoction later, sometimes both but I get through it.

When you have a child with special needs, change can hold just that much more significance.  What can make another child or family a BIT nervous can send our child OFF THE CHARTS.  So the fact that Elizabeth has special needs combined with the above information about me really makes the for quite a combination.

I know due to Elizabeth’s disorders of SPD and dyspraxia, we have had to bend the world to meet her, plan things out to the nth degree, control as many variables as possible, controlling as many changes as possible… all the while realizing that you really cannot make everything work just your way. So when you DO find a system that works, a place to go that is perfect or people who GET your child the tendency is to hold on tight and to hope that for a while, you can relax knowing your child is succeeding and growing well, that all things are order.  THEN JUST WHEN YOU RELAX…JUST WHEN YOU SAY ” AHHHH!”…something happens that sends your best laid plans into a tailspin.

I offer this out today as our whole summer has been spent adapting to one change after the next.  Some changes were expected, others were not.  This summer bears no resemblance to last summer at all.  There were two choices in front of us this summer, one was to hold on tight to everything, to simply not adapt…two was to take a deep breath and make it all work….in other words”change and adapt”  The two very things that our children may be struggling with on a day to day basis.

This was hard work for me for reasons well explained in the above paragraph…but one day I was thinking that I was coping pretty well and I took that moment to realize that right along side of me, doing the same was Elizabeth, she was changing and growing as well.

Instead of resisting the changes, Elizabeth was able to recognize them and adapt…when her sister/best friend started college. Elizabeth adapted to the summer days with out her, when our beloved tutor had a health crisis, Elizabeth prayed for her and started doing some great school work with me, she also visited our very sick family member and told him that heaven was waiting for him….yes, these are some of the amazing things done this summer of change and there has been alot more.

I am not amazed she did them, as I believe in her so deeply, but I am amazed she did them all at once, she showed me once again how strong she is and how she keeps achieving.

Our children are so special, they teach us just as much if not more than we teach them…but what they teach us is not found in books or in a therapy session.  Our children can reach those goals that seem so high, they may take a bit longer than others or they may need a few more tries but WOW, don’t they deserve the chance to reach up just as high as the others?

 

I am proud of her, thankful for her and above all so grateful to be her student sometimes…  Blessing to all for a good week.

 

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