A Mother's Day reflection

I have been called an over protective mother. I really can’t care. From the first day I realized that each of my boys have a mild form of autism, I have felt like I am flying blind. There aren’t any well established rules and guidelines for my husband and me, I just arrogantly assumed when I was pregnant that I would most likely have neuro-typical children as was probable according to my gene pool. And when I first heard the word autism, I hadn’t really ever encountered it before to my knowledge in the form of a person in real life. I didn’t know anything. Books on autism and parenting tips are just recently published or coming in the near future.

Almost sixteen years later, I can tell you that MY children with autism are a lot less cautious, and a lot more vulnerable than typical kids. I have heard the argument that mothers of my generation are just over protective as a result of the pendulum swinging back in the opposite direction from the generation of latch key kids who were the product of rampant divorce from the mid sixties to the mid eighties. I haven’t exactly seen the divorce rate decrease, but I guess I have seen parents grow more paranoid, and maybe we just feel like the world is a less friendly place.

I don’t know if statistics bear that out, but if the latch key/pendulum theory is right, then I have two reasons to be over protective. My mother was a single mom who worked full time from the year I entered kindergarten until I moved in with my dad during high school. I was one of a zillion kids who came home to an empty house (several years before I reached teenagerhood), and after that, the peril increased as my much older brothers came home, often with a pack of their friends. To be honest, when I think back on it, it was lucky that much worse things didn’t happen to me than what did.

Dad’s house was more affluent, more educated, but not a lot safer. I continued to put myself in perilous positions with bad decision making, which was mostly a result of poor judgment and lack of defensive skills versus bad attitude. Those were also the last few innocent days before the advent of the time when sex might lead to death, and drugs went from an amusing recreational enterprise to a seriously scary more accessible business at lower and lower ages. There were no chats on the web with total strangers who attempted to lure us to engage in frightening behavior, bullies didn’t have the weapons of mass media in their arsenal, and tv shows didn’t heavily promote the idea of emotionally detached, sexually sophisticated teenagers as the new standard of cool. I neither saw nor heard of kids on campus with guns. Knives yes, guns no.

When I think of how I am desperate to protect my kids from all the dangers that I didn’t have to face myself, truthfully, I know I would be the same way, even without the addition of all those new hazards. I remember a boy, a boy who never got to be a man, a boy whose mother will never get to see his face or feel his hug on Mother’s day on earth again.

He scared me, he was a bad boy. And yet I was secretly attracted to him. It had nothing to do with the unspoken allure of “bad boys,” there were aspects of his personality that I liked, and I could never reconcile how his personality traits weren’t mutually exclusive. So he also had the intrigue of enigma going for him also. I was always trying to figure him out. I was too young, or at least too immature to have considered having a boyfriend anyway, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him at school and at home. If he would have ever even glanced in my direction, I would have wet myself.

He was fearless, which was the opposite of me, and something that I wished to be. He was good-looking, in a rugged kind of way; he certainly didn’t groom to be “pretty,” he definitely had the air of “don’t give a damn about my looks” about him. He got into fights. He played pranks. He did what I considered to be the most frightening and foolish thing of all: he DREW ATTENTION TO HIMSELF with his behavior. What amazed me more than anything was that he wasn’t even TRYING to get attention; he would have rather dodged it. He was too busy to be bothered with answering to adults with an accounting. But the school principal was well aware of him.

I couldn’t have stopped thinking about him if I wanted to, he was in more than half my classes. Ok, this is where I will sound like a total snob, but the way the students were divided up, it was obvious to me that I had been assigned in a track with “smart kids,” or at least the high achievers. I was actually puzzled as to why I was there, as far as I was concerned, they were NOT my peers. I was shy, I didn’t want my teachers to have high expectations of me, with good reason. My report cards from that time reflected my resentment and fear of challenging subjects.

And I would have thought (again with the assumptions) that with his attitude and his, uh, other behaviors, that he wouldn’t have been in that particular track either. I associated his personality with the dumbasses, or at least the other kids who didn’t give a rat’s butt about school. The kids who smoked on campus in the bathrooms at lunchtime, the ones I was sure would soon have tattoos, probably before they graduated even. I’m talking about the group of kids who knew how to fix a car before they could even get a driver’s license. He definitely acted that way. It separated us from the other kids in a way; the two of us were the odd men out so to speak, at least in my head.

He was very aggressive if you crossed his path, and I’m sure some of the other girls were afraid of him too, especially some of the nice, sweet, studious type girls who were typically in my classes. He was kind of a wild card, especially since I had never seen him in elementary school; I didn’t have any idea what he was capable of doing. I heard and saw him call another girl a very nasty phrase once when he was ticked, and it terrified me that I might ever be at the receiving end of his unpredictable anger fueled behavior. One of my teachers had the nerve to get knocked up in the middle of the school year, and on a few occasions she divided up her class and sent small groups to other teachers because she didn’t “feel well.” By virtue of what system I don’t know, the two of us were in a small group LEFT ALONE in her class room while she went to barf. I was scared spitless that he would either do something scary TO me, or would do something else for which we would all get BLAMED.

But I had seen him be kind on occasion, a loyal friend, and a possessing wicked sense of humor. And despite his lack of love of academic learning, he was obviously smart as hell. I was certain he was a good catholic mama’s boy who went to church every Sunday, and I knew he came from a large family, to whom family was important. And on one occasion I saw him outside of school at a community fair at night, were he was walking around with a group of his friends, shirt unbuttoned, strutting like he owned the place, holding a glass bottle which was probably a soda but held the distinct possibility of containing alcohol. He was so cool, and yet so hot at the same time if you know what I mean. I steered far clear from his path, but my hormones went into overdrive just recalling that picture in my head.

I started a new path in life, and I hadn’t seen him in years when one day I came back to visit my home town. My old best friend introduced me to a new friend of hers, and they suggested I visit a new community enterprise, at which her brother was employed. “He’s handsome,” she promised me with a wink and a nod. “And he graduated from your old school. His name is XXX YYY.”

“YYY sounds familiar,” I replied. “Do you have an even younger brother, maybe just my age? Blond hair?”

She was across the room when she answered, or I would have seen something was wrong in her face right then. “You knew ZZZ.”

I should have noticed her use of the past tense, but I was so excited that I was about to get some news about my previous crush, that it didn’t strike me immediately. After all, I didn’t know him NOW, I had known him THEN. “I sure do!” I began an accounting: we were in a lot of classes together, him and me and then all those “smart kids.”

“ZZZ is dead.” At least, I’m guessing that’s what she said, or it had to have been some variation of that, certainly. I was in such shock at the news of his demise that I don’t remember exactly how she put it. But I felt the weight of it like a physical blow, followed immediately by a huge sense of regret that I had brought up what was an obviously painful subject for her. She was flitting around the room muttering “where is my brother’s stuff. I always keep his stuff with me every time I move, I always want to have his stuff with me.”

It hadn’t completely sunk in yet. I mean, DEAD? How could that possibly be? Someone MY AGE was dead? Our lives were supposed to be just starting! How on earth could this vibrant, larger than life character possibly be DEAD? He was so young! He had been so good looking! He had such great potential! So many people liked him! He was tough! He could take care of himself! How could he be DEAD?!?!?

She gave me a plastic bag with a drawstring which held an assortment of papers, ribbons, newspaper clippings, etc. I carefully went through every piece of it. He had been in a foolish car accident; he hadn’t even been the one driving. He had been a hero, said one account. He had by his actions saved the life of the other passenger in the car. It might have just been wishful thinking, the kind of justification one makes when one needs to make sense out of the senseless.

I was sure when his mother saw him leave that night to go out with his friends that she was certain she would see him again, that it wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly be the last time she would see him alive. I was certain that she was a good mom who took good care of her kids. What could she have done differently, except for to smother him? I doubt he would have accepted that, recalling his personality. As I examined each artifact, I saw a picture of him in an ugly standard prom tuxedo, with a girl that I knew on his arm. He had continued his life after I left; he had softened enough to take a girl to the prom. He had done things I didn’t know about, he was in the process of becoming who he would be, which was probably considerably more than just a bad boy. And I had wanted to see how he would turn out.

And I was more than I had been. I was pretty for the first time in my life (actually not the first time, just the first time I noticed that I was pretty). I was gaining confidence, I was a good student, I was going to amount to something too. I had VALUE. I hadn’t wanted him necessarily, but I discovered that I had wanted him to see it. I don’t really know why. What would that have validated for me? That I was at least worthy of his attention? Maybe. Whatever. Whatever I had wanted paled in comparison to the fact that he was never coming back, could never come back. Would never be whatever it was he was becoming, and the world, and especially his family, his mother, would never get to see it. All because he, or someone he had been with, had decided to act foolishly in a car.

What was it like for his mom to get that phone call? When can I let MY kids go out without ME? Without any adult supervision? When can I let them get in the car with another kid their age? How do I keep them from drinking, or doing drugs, or having sex too soon? How do I keep them from trying to imitate race car drivers, or trying to prove that they are tough enough to take on our neighborhood “bad boy?” How do I stop them from doing the same stupid things that I did (which I will not enumerate in order to protect my own parents who might be reading this)? Or worst of all, how can I prevent them from becoming a target of someone else’s bad intentions? Or just someone else’s really bad judgment? If regular kids are at risk, how much does it increase when applied to my kids? If I should ever get one of those phone calls, I can’t imagine how I could keep living. I would never kill myself, but how could I keep going?

I have a really big challenge ahead of me in just making sure my kids reach their academic potential, but what’s more important is their need to reach their independence potential. It’s too soon, and much too uncharted territory for us to even know what that is. In the meantime, I struggle with just keeping them alive. A few years ago, my oldest son had appendicitis which perforated and was undetected because he was unable to communicate sufficiently and advocate for himself with an unfamiliar doctor when we let him for the first time get on an airplane by himself and cross the country. We got him back just in time for a surgeon to save his life. The surgeon was surprised by what he found as he explored my son’s insides. How could a child have that condition and have kept walking around? Welcome to autism, doc.

My younger son is constantly under our watchful guard from only a few feet away, because it would never occur to him naturally that a car could mow him down and snuff him out in just a few seconds. They are both home schooled now, but it is clear to me that my youngest is going to need more than that. But when will it be ok for me to put him on a bus and stay for several hours in the care of our notoriously unconcerned local school district when he can’t yet fend for himself on a relatively basic level?

Becoming and being a mother is by far the most meaningful thing I have ever done, and truthfully, there are days when I am consumed by fear, and wish I had never done it. The thought of never meeting my sons makes me want to cry, and yet, the weight of responsibility that would be lifted from me if I hadn’t would be so liberating. I was an anxious child, to be sure, but it was nothing compared with this. They are so precious to me, and the possibility that I might get it wrong, or at least not end up with a favorable outcome, strikes fear in my heart on nearly a daily basis. I adore them, but I rarely find peace anymore.

Whatever I manage to accomplish in my life, I know it will be pretty meaningless unless I get things right with my kids. I have a young cousin that lives with me, she has technically reached the age of adulthood, and everyday I am consumed with what she needs as well. She is right on the cusp; it is critical to get it right. I am so concerned with making sure she goes down the right path, and I can’t even claim responsibility for her! She wants and needs to make decisions for herself, and I can’t talk about her too much without invading her privacy. This is a gifted child with a high moral character. But how I worry! Because if she’s not alright in the long run, it will weigh heavily on my heart.

Something greatly disturbing happened last week to some acquaintances. After struggling mightily to get pregnant, and suffering a difficult delivery, a couple we knew brought home a beautiful baby girl. Her mother recovered quickly, but promised that this child would be the only one due to the trauma of the experience. After celebrating her third month birthday, their daughter suddenly died in her sleep without any rhyme or reason. I can’t even imagine what her mother must be feeling on this, which would have been her first, mother’s day.

I had called my husband at work to warn him, I didn’t wish to relay this disturbing news over the phone, but I couldn’t take the risk that he might coincidentally run into this couple and inquire about the baby without knowing what had happened. He came home in shock. We discussed how frightening is the fragility of human life, and that despite the comfort of faith, how devastating is the death of a child. And there is no one that can add anything extra to their life by worrying about what MIGHT happen, knowing that it serves no purpose doesn’t stop me from doing it all the time. While I have the comfort of prayer, I also have the burden of KNOWLEDGE, and the freedom of choice. I chose to have children, and I know that bad things can happen to good people too. But without the risk, nothing good can happen either.

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered that boy today, I was just thinking about how scary it is to be a mother, and wondering why on earth I wish I had more children. His mother had lots of children, but it never compensates for the one that is gone. I wonder how she feels on every mother’s day that’s happened since he passed away; can she celebrate, or does she just remember the one that isn’t there, the one that isn’t wishing her a happy mother’s day today? All I can do to find a positive spin right now is to vow that today, just even for a few minutes, I will APPRECIATE that I got to be a mother, and maybe stop worrying about it for just a few minutes, and enjoy it. Maybe even say “thank you.”