Grown Ups

We were just babies then, we look so young in the picture. It was only eight years ago, but it seems like a lifetime. Don is wearing his Galactic Cowboys tshirt and I am roly poly with shiny curls eating a popsicle waiting for our baby to be born. My eyes sting when I see how innocent we were, happy with the irrational expectation of children that everything would always be okay. We lived in blessed ignorance of specialists and therapists and what it means when doctors avoid your gaze and look at their shoes.

I am a grown up now, with gray hairs and a serenity and connection with God I never thought possible. My life is a paradox of joy and grief and I have a hard time explaining that to people. I suspect my closest friends understand that everyday my heart breaks and breaks again, with beauty and sadness and sweet and bitter tears mixed together. That is my existence, and at the end of the day I go to sleep with a prayer of thanksgiving. I have few complaints.

My husband seems to have stayed the same in many ways. He is still just as excited about a new band he hears, he is still in love with me and the kids. He is just as optimistic and sure that his music will go somewhere as he was in 1997. He is kind and willing to do whatever is put before him. He is still the first person to offer his seat to an old lady on the bus. He still likes the Galactic Cowboys.

At times I have resented his perpetual youth, his cheerful optimism, his ability to be in the moment and to always believe the best is just around the corner. I feel my soul has aged, and his has not had to. I wonder if he misses the old me. Sometimes I do. I wonder sadly if he wishes he was still single, going to concerts, making music in his studio in the basement.

Last night we drove home from a training session for a new therapy that could change our developmentally disabled son's life. It involves long hours of hard work and consistency, in addition to all we do now. At the very least it could teach our son independence, and possibly harvest what we know is in there, a beautiful mind to match his beautiful face and soul. I want this so badly I can hardly breath, and I want to tell my husband, so he knows we must do this.
He will have to get serious, I want to tell him. Grow up. Take on some responsibility. I have this speech prepared and I turn to him, and I see what I have not seen before, steely determination to match my own. Like our son there is more to my husband that meets the eye, and perhaps me too. Maybe that girl with the popsicle isn't completely gone, either. Maybe there are irrational expectations of happiness yet to be had.

Not Even Close

Some things are easy. It is easy to love Jude, to gaze at him and wonder at his china blue eyes and listen to him mumble mysteries under his breath. I love his hand gestures, and how he squints to look at things in the light.

I don't mind explaining him to people, or having no time for myself. Brushing his arms and legs, massaging him, shaving ice with the Spongebob snow cone maker so he has 'snow'; I could do that for the next 50 years and never complain.

This is what is hard: Saying no. Making Jude do what is difficult for him. Listening to him cry and not being able to console him. Putting him on the bus and watching him ride away to have fun and learn and play with someone else. Loosening my grip, just a little. Remembering that ultimately he doesn't belong to me. I want to take this gift God gave me and hide somewhere with it and not share it, ever, or let it change.

I guess we are getting into the true meaning of love. Do I love Jude more than myself? Is what he needs more important than what I want, which is having my boy near me and happy always?

I think I understand more everyday why God chose to use His only child to show us how much He loves us. I am just not there yet. Not even close.