It Wasn't Mine To Wear - A Poem (Of Sorts...)

I saw a pretty hat yesterday.  It was a hat that I wanted more than anything to put on, the very moment that I saw it!  The hat was made of the most beautiful fabric.  It looked like it would be as soft as a cloud if I touched it.

How different my life would be, if only I could trade the hat on my head for the beautiful hat that I saw yesterday.  But wait... would a different life be the life that God had perfectly orchestrated just for me?  I think not.

I think that the hat that I am wearing in this moment... in this place... is the hat that I must wear.  It is my hat and no one else has one just like it!  Some days, I have to remind myself to embrace the uniqueness of my hat.  Oddly shaped and difficult to adjust, my hat requires me to work with it sometimes, to get it in just the right position on top of my head.  Still, it is my hat and no one else has one just like it!

There are prettier, more expensive looking hats than the one that I've been given to wear, but these hats do not belong to me.  It's all a matter a perspective, I suppose.  Some people may look at my hat and admire it.  They may wish for a hat like mine without realizing what I had to do to get my hat to look this way.

My hat belongs only to me.  I will find ways to make it work for me, then.  What do I desire most from my hat?  Only that it will embrace me in the same way that I have chosen embrace it.

Still Learning, Still Believing

This post is dedicated to my daughter.  I have learned a lot over the years about your needs, fears, likes and dislikes, yet still I don't feel like I know nearly enough.  I lose patience with you at times.  In those moments, I forget or just don't realize that much of your behavior is a manifestation of the challenges that you face, day in and day out.  You are my champion, my hero.  You don't understand the reasons behind many your behaviors either, so forgive me for demanding explanations for things that you cannot give me.  Together, we will continue to move forward.  I will do my best to help you to understand yourself and the world around you, and I don't take that responsibility lightly! Every person has a gift that he/she brings into the world when they are born.  You are no exception! Your resilient sense of determination assures me that you will achieve your dreams.  You may have your own way of getting there, but you will get there.  I am so blessed to be your mother.  I hope that you feel equally as blessed to have me.

Valley Low

These past few evenings have definitely felt like "givin' up days".  "Givin' up days" is a phrase that singer/songwriter, Kirk Franklin eloquently coined in a song on one of his more recent albums.  We all have them.  You know, the days that you don't want to pursue your goals and aspirations anymore because it all feels so pointless.  Or the days that you question your faith and wonder if God has become distracted with someone else's life and taken His hands off of the steering wheel of yours.  I know that God is still with us, but the daily struggle is sometimes overwhelming.  Take the past two evenings.  All of my weeknight evenings are spent monitoring or helping my daughter while she completes her homework, attempting to prepare dinner, and trying (often in vain) to get a head start on preparing for the next day.  I often feel as if I'm being pulled in 20 directions at once!  The homework struggles are the most difficult.  Parenting a child with special needs is hard, but the hardest part is, perhaps, seeing the looks of despair, frustration and hopelessness on my daughter's face as she attempts to complete her nightly assignments.  She wants to "get it", but it often just doesn't "click" for her.  So night after night we chunk information and repeat it, hoping that she will be able to remember it by the end of the week.  Some of it, she remembers and the rest is forgotten by the time her tests and quizzes are given.  I hug her because I feel her sadness and in the next minute I become frustrated with her because she seems to intentionally do the exact opposite of everything that I ask her to do!  Is it noncompliance or incompetence?  It's becoming more and more difficult to tell.
I'm beginning to wonder if her current school placement is right for her.  The teacher/student ratio is great - 9 students to 1 teacher.  The curriculum, on the other hand, is fast-paced and a little advanced.  My daughter doesn't get A's, but she manages to keep her head above water.  "But at what cost?", I've been asking myself lately.  I will not allow her self-esteem and confidence to be trampled while she struggles to keep pace at school.  There doesn't seem to be a school in our area that is really a good fit for her.  The large class sizes at the public middle school would be too much for her.  My daughter's gullibility and social immaturity would also make her an easy target there.  Tuition costs at private schools for children with special learning challenges are astronomical, placing them far out of our reach.  So for now, we will fight on and try to get through the rest of the school year taking it one day at a time.