"Demon of Pride"

“The world always makes sure that you cannot fool yourself for long about who you really think you are by showing you what truly matters to you.”                   

 -Eckhart Tolle

My head has been spinning a bit this week.  A couple of things happened last weekend that I missed, the first of which was that our best friends moved away from our home town in Montana and I wasn't there to hug them way too hard for way too long, sobbing uncontrollably and begging them to stay.  I wasn't there to help load the truck or chase it down the street when they took off.  Why I had the urge to do these things is a bit beyond me, especially since I don’t live there anyway.  What difference does it make to me where they live?  I think I just wish I could’ve helped, wish I could’ve taken the opportunity to show them my love in a way that they could see with their eyes.

 

The other thing that happened was that my old church camp had a reunion, and I wasn't there to… well… re-unite.  Instead I was at my house in Arizona, trying to decide whether or not to remove the ceiling fans and face-plate covers from the electrical outlets before listing it on Monday.

 

I decided to keep the face-plate covers, and as I was unscrewing the stupid little things from the walls and replacing them with the old, white plastic ones, I thought about everything I was in the process of missing.  And it brought to mind an activity we did at that camp one year when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen years old.  The camp staff put together a treasure hunt, of sorts, for us campers.  We had to go through a series of obstacles, and if we made it through all of them then we got to go to heaven.  I know.  But try to set aside any specific religious ideas and humor me for a moment if you can.

One of the obstacles in the course involved getting past the “Demon of Pride.”  It was really just a camp counselor dressed in black with some sort of ski mask over his or her face.  Each camper was given an item.  It was something silly… like a bible maybe.  Or a mitten.  Hell, I can’t remember.  And the idea was for us to give our items up to the demon.  We weren’t told what we were supposed to do however.  We were supposed to just know.

Now, I must say that spiritual principles have never come quickly to me.  In fact, to this very day I have to sit with a spiritual principle for some time before it starts to sink in.  This one sort of makes sense to me now – that you can’t fight pride with pride, because if you do then pride wins anyway.  It also has something to do with detaching from things I think (people, places, things, situations, specific outcomes, old ideas that don’t work anymore, etc.).  But, at the time, I just didn’t think very abstractly.  And it just made no sense to me what-so-ever why anyone would give anything to a demon.

He/she jumped out of a bush, growling loudly and grabbing for our items.  It was so dramatic that I really had to focus in order to keep from rolling my eyes.  The kids I was with handed their items right over to the demon.  That baffled me, and I really wasn’t sure what I should do.  Long story short, I ended up in a wrestling match with the “Demon of Pride.”  And as I walked away from it, still carrying my item, he/she yelled to me from behind, “But you were supposed to give it to me!”

I wasn’t allowed into the next obstacle with my item, so I had to go all the way back to the bush and find the demon.  There was no growling or grabbing that time, just a disgusted set of eyes encircled in black ski mask, and an outreached hand.  I gave my item to the demon with a red face.  And shockingly, I still managed to leave camp that year having no more idea of how to let go of things than when I got there.

Someone is going to buy our house, along with everything we've put into it - granite, built in Bosch appliances (you can stick a whole chicken into a Bosch dishwasher, by the way, and it will magically disappear – just sayin'), and cherry wood floors, for almost $60K less than we bought the house for three years ago.  And we’re among the lucky ones around here I’m afraid.

And we’ve found out why Shane’s company said “no” to Shane doing his job virtually.  They’re re-organizing the whole team Shane works on, which means that everyone on the team is in danger of being “displaced” (which is a nice word for “laid off”).  Now, they’ve assured Shane that he’s a valuable asset to the company (he’s also an MBA hire which is a hefty investment on their part), so the picture probably isn’t as grim as I think.  But still, change is definitely in the air. 

Shane has been applying like crazy for roles on other teams within the company (some virtual and some not) in part because of the re-org., but also because we’re still waiting to hear whether or not Cale will be selected for Montana’s early invention program.  If Cale is selected, then we’ll drop everything and move to Montana (job or no job).  And if he's not selected, then I'm not sure what we'll do.  I suppose it'll depend on whether or not Shane gets stuck working here in Hell, oh... I mean Phoenix.  In a nut shell, every possible thing in our lives is up in the air, and all we can do is wait and see where everything lands. 

 

It’s kind of strange actually.  After all the work we’ve put into our house, I thought I’d feel some sort of sick, heavy sadness about letting it go.  But instead I’ve felt the exact opposite.  I’ve felt relief, almost like I’ve been digging my way out of a tunnel with a teaspoon and I can finally see daylight.  And we don’t mind letting go of Shane’s job if that’s what happens.  We’re creative, resourceful people who can probably get through whatever comes.  Alden and Isabel would probably do fine in any school in any city. 

 

The only thing I really care about is whether or not Cale gets selected for Montana's Early Intervention program, because I still think it might be his last best chance of learning how to talk.  They’ve already had one drawing in which Cale wasn’t selected, but there’s one more drawing before his birthday (which is the deadline for selection) so I still have hope. 

You wouldn't believe what I've gone through to get Cale ABA therapy here in Arizona.  Because we don't have insurance that covers anything for Autism, I've had to rely solely on state help.  Arizona only provides Cale with two and a half hours of ABA therapy per week, and it’s actually ABA parent training, not direct ABA therapy.  The therapist comes to teach me how to do ABA therapy with Cale, not to work with Cale directly.

  

Doing the therapy with Cale myself has been great for teaching him basic daily life skills.  But for something as extensive as teaching him how to talk, I simply don’t know how to put in the needed hours.  Not without neglecting my other two children anyway.  Plus, I don't really know what I'm doing.  When it's me trying to do it with him alone, it just turns into a big power struggle and makes us both miserable.  It's excruciating to be in the position of having to decide whether to do therapy with Cale or to be there for my other kids, especially because Cale screams and cries and fights me the whole time I try to do the therapy with him. 

Every day for the whole past year I’ve had to make decisions like - should help the kids with their homework and make dinner, or should I make Cale scream for another hour?  Should I clean this massive, disgusting house for four hours or should I make Cale scream for four hours?  Should I take Alden and Isabel to the birthday party, or should I make Cale scream?  Because if I don't make Cale scream, he might end up in an institution some day. 

It takes the whole "bad mother" thing to a whole new level.  I'm a bad mother because I don't take Alden and Isabel to the birthday parties and, at the exact same time, I'm a bad mother because I can't get Cale to talk.  And when I decide that I simply don’t want to make Cale scream, I’m a bad mother for not trying.

Not only is this what we've been doing for the past year, but it hasn't brought anything but the slightest of results.  And it's extremely difficult to not resent your child when everyone else has been neglected so that he could have his needs met, when he’s fought it tooth and nail every step of the way, and when he still hasn’t made any progress.

The state of Arizona gives us these two and a half hours of ABA parent training per week, and will for an extra year past the age when they would ordinarily stop, because I'm the biggest, whiniest, loudest mouth around.  I’ve learned how to be a very persistent pest.  But they've repeatedly assured me that this is absolutely the most we’ll ever be able to get for him here.  In Montana, if he gets selected for the Early Intervention Program, he will get 20+ hours of one on one ABA therapy per week, direct from a master's level therapist that isn’t me.  Oh, I hope he gets picked.

Cale is going to be five years old next month.  And if he passes the age of five without talking, then his chances go down.  It's not that he wouldn't sort of learn how over time (maybe), but the chances of any real, significant, steady progress goes way down.  My sister in law (Shane's sister), who has two children with Autism as well, told me that both of her kids were talking by age five. 

And at a party a couple of weeks ago,  I had a two year old hand me a sucker and say, "Can you opin dis pwease?" which caught me off guard and snapped my heart in half.  How do you explain to a two year why opening a sucker makes you cry, while your own son, who's a full head taller, walks around in little circles and screams at his suckers?  

 

Maybe it's God's plan for Cale to not talk.  And maybe, when I finally get to heaven and get my hands around God's neck, he'll explain to me why I had to give this one up to his silly demon.  He/she can have the location of my friends, our houses, income, cars, whatever.  But Cale talking?  That one just seems too important to give up.  Or, maybe, it’s too important to not give up.  That’s the thing that keeps coming to me over and over and over again - that I need to hand over my attachment to whether or not Cale talks.  It’s a terrible attachment.  And being free of it might just be heavenly.

The heaven at camp was a shady spot under the pine trees at the edge of a hill.  It had a perfect view of the lake.  We ate grapes and fresh Flathead cherries, and we got to be with our friends, simply because we gave something to a counselor in a ski mask (amongst other things).  Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if it worked that way today? 

I guess that heaven for me today is loving people so much that I wish I had the money to fly to Montana to help them move.  And it’s loving people who probably barely remember me.  I’m going to make it to that reunion someday, and whether those people remember me or not I’m going to give them full blown hugs and kisses and tears.  There will be none of the old “too cool to hug” shit.  I’m going to find people and I’m going to knock them over.  They’re going to see my love with their eyes, and they’re going to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that any “coolness” I may have once had is completely gone :) 

My love for people, through the process of letting go of Cale talking, has been a sort of repellent for negative thinking.  I’m trying to think of how to explain that.  Or maybe I should give you a scene out of a movie.

Oh!  I’ve got the perfect one!  And after talking about this, I’ll never be in danger of being cool again :)  In the fifth Harry Potter movie, at the end, just after Harry’s Godfather (along with his dream of having his own parent someday) dies, the evil wizard penetrates Harry’s mind in an attempt to torture him to death with all of his worst fears and all of his very worst memories.  But he sees his friends, and he forces himself to think about them.  

You can see the battle inside of his mind, like a slideshow of flashing memories that flip from good memory, to agonizing memory, to good, to agonizing.  What’s fascinating to me is the nature of the good memories.  They’re such lovely, typical, every day type memories of his friends and family (hugs, laughs, simple hanging out, etc.).  The battle finally ends with such a steady stream of love and friendship memories, that it repels the negative thinking and fear, and ultimately forces the evil wizard out of his mind.

I’ve always been intrigued by the character of Harry Potter (who's actually J.K. Rowling), because I’ve never been able to relate to the way he just seems to think naturally.  I’ve had to learn how to think that way, in part by reading (and watching) J.K. Rowling’s gorgeous little stories.

         

It’s such a paradox that having to let things go brings into focus the things that matter.  Erma Bombeck says in her book - If I Had My Life To Live Over (written after she found out she was dying from cancer) – “I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage, I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded, I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life, I would’ve taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth, when my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later… now go get washed up for dinner.”  There would have been more, ‘I love you’s, more I’m sorry’s.’  Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what.  Instead, let’s cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.”

Yesterday, I had a friend tell me that every time he sees me he thinks, “There’s the proof.”

Proof?  “Proof of what!?” I asked.

“Proof that God exists,” he answered. 

My chest almost caved in on itself.  I mean, is that the sweetest thing to say or what?  I managed to refrain from saying, “Are you crazy!?”  Instead I just let myself experience the full course of my very favorite emotion – laughing and crying at the exact same time.

Thanks friends.  And I love you.

   

Miracles

"Anger is a killing thing:  it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him."

Louis L'Amour

I have always had two conflicting, futuristic visions of myself.  And in the past few years, these visions of my future self have become more pronounced, almost well defined descriptions.  It's possible that they've become my actual options.  The potential for either is very real, but I can move towards whichever I prefer.  I have a choice, I think.

The first is that of a deeply embittered, sickly skinny, hunched over old woman, with matted gray hair sticking out of a make-shift bun on the back of her head.  She's probably around seventy years old, but looks ninety.  She smokes two packs of cigarettes per day, walks wobbly using a cane, and dresses in worn, black, second-hand clothes.

She lives in Paris, of course, so that she can soothe herself by wandering the Louvre every day alone, completely undisturbed by interruptions.  She speaks to no one.  Even in Paris, she refuses to even try to speak French (and if you've ever been to France, you know well that goes over).  Instead she spits angry, unintelligible, smoker's hacks at anyone who tries to talk to her, ensuring her alone-ness with perfect completion.

Her very demeanor sweats bitterness (ever met someone like this?), the dripping of which can be plainly seen by everyone.  She knows that it repels people, and she hates it.  She knows she makes it clear that she wants to be alone, but at the exact same time she suffers from an almost indescribable longing for companionship.

She's spent her life needing to be sure, needing to be safe, and needing to be right.  But she hasn't always been sure, certainly hasn't always been safe, and everyone else has usually been "wrong."  She's needed for things to go a certain way, but things have never seemed to go that way.  And she's been angry about all of this for a very long time.  Eventually she dies alone, in her Paris apartment, having missed all the things worthwhile in life because she never could get past herself. 

The second is that of a content, upright and healthy, beautifully maintained old woman, with shiny gray hair smoothed into a little bun on the back of her head.  She's probably around ninety years old, but looks seventy.  She quite smoking so long ago that the doctors can't tell that she was ever a smoker.  She takes calcium and eats vegetables (and makes her husband do the same:), walks comfortably with the exception of a little arthritis, and dresses in a well worn, light gray sweater.  She gets chilly.

She spends her days with her husband.  They take care of their sixty year old, non-verbal, Autistic son, and dream of wandering Louvre and trying to speak French.  Their other children live far away and don't get around to visit that often, so she visits with her husband, the people at the grocery store, and the post deliverers, ensuring her not alone-ness with perfect completion.

Her very demeanor oozes love, the dripping of which can be plainly seen by everyone.  She knows that it attracts people, and she likes it.  She knows she makes it clear that she enjoys companionship, but at the exact same time she doesn't long for it.  Her children never worry about whether or not they visit enough, because they know their parents are happy.  And that's all children ever really want from their parents.

She's spent her life wanting to be sure, wanting to be safe, and enjoying it very much when she was right:)  But she's been okay not being sure, okay not always being safe, and has consistently let go of the desire to make others "wrong."  She would've liked very much for things to have gone a certain way, and she's occasionally become angry when they haven't gone that way.  But she's always recognized anger itself as an enemy, and she's always refused to feed it with much attention.  Anger starves inside of her, so it eventually moves on of it's own accord in order to find better feeding ground.  

She has no regrets, because she's usually done everything she could think of for her son.  And even though none of it ever made any difference for him, she knows she's tried.  She knows she's done the best she could with the knowledge that she's had, which is the only thing she's ever had any power over anyway.  And she doesn't worry about the things that she's missed, because she couldn't have possibly known everything all the time.  She isn't God after all.  But she's done her little part, usually to the best of her ability, and she can smile about that.

She makes it to a hundred years old before her husband dies (that would put him at 105:), and to about a hundred and five herself before finally institutionalizing her son.  She tells her son that she loves him.  She tells him that his parents will always, always be with him.  Then she leaves, trusting that he will be taken care of.  And she dies with the housekeeper by her side, in her house, having participated fully in all the things worthwhile in life because she was usually able to get past herself.

It does seem like, with almost every action I take, I can foresee which vision I'm moving toward.  And lately I've been moving towards lady number one.  In spite of this, the people in my life have literally been taking my hand and pulling me towards lady number two.  You know who you are, and thank you for being brave enough to give me the truth in spite of what I might think of it.  We've had a couple of miracles happen.

We still have hope for Cale getting into Montana's early intervention program.  My husband made the phone call because, frankly, I've been a bit of a bitch lately.  My darling, gorgeous, wise and wonderful husband, called and asked the "women in charge," in Montana, to put my son's name onto Montana's "lottery" list without actually having moved there yet.  And he happened to get a hold of just the right woman at just the right time.

At first she was very discouraging.  She told Shane that there would be a very slim chance of Cale being selected because not only does he need to be on the list before he turns five, but he also needs to be selected before he turns five next month (see, this is where I would've lost it and ruined the whole thing).

Shane responded by telling her that we are under no illusions about Cale's "chances" at anything, but that we are his parents.  He told her that we believe their program might be Cale's last best chance of learning how to talk, and that we need to know we've done everything we can for our son.  He told her that we at least need to try to get him on that list, that it's more about knowing we've done everything we can than it is about him being selected.  Naturally, this woman fell in love with Shane.  And she has bent over backwards to get all of our information in on time to put Cale's name on the list before the next drawing.

She made us commit fully to moving back to Montana in time for Cale to start therapy, should he be selected.  And we did.  If Cale is selected, it will be on or before Sept. 8th of this year.  And if he is selected, then Shane will quit his job if need be and we will move back to Montana.

When Shane got off the phone, we asked each other how on earth we could afford to move if we need to.  And we decided that if it was supposed to happen, it would work itself out somehow.  The next day, Shane brought me a rather curious piece of mail.  A friend of ours has sent us a check for enough money to MOVE if we need to.  We both cried.  And it's going to go into our savings account for that purpose and that purpose alone.  And I don't have the first clue how to thank you enough friend.    

Obviously, my hopes are up high for Cale again.  And I'm in real danger, if he isn't selected, of giving lady number one a hell of a lead.  So I've been making a conscious effort to make peace with the worst case scenario.  And you know the thing that's become clear to me?  Again?  It's never going to be ABOUT whether or not Cale gets better.

Cale is exactly as he's supposed to be right now.  But, at the same time, I have to do the thing my husband told the lady in Montana.  I have to try.  It's all I can really do.  We have to keep doing our part (in this case, simply getting Cale on the list) whether it has any influence on Cale or not.  Because it's more about being able to look ourselves in the mirror and like who we see than it is about anything else.

Finding out that Shane and I are willing to give up our lives here in Arizona, to try to help our son, has been an incredibly awesome and wonderful thing to find out about ourselves.  It means our priorities are in the right place, and that God will take care of the rest.  We've already succeeded I think, whether Cale is selected or not.  Because we're quite happy with who we are at this moment.

You know the other thing that's become clear?  I'm not sure that lady number two existed at all before my son came along.  Maybe Cale's Autism is a gift in itself.  I mean, it's brought out the worst in me at times for sure.  But it's brought out the best in me as well.  And it's made me aware of the choice.  Shane asked me the other day if I really wasn't aware of the choice before Cale.  And I said, "I don't know.  But I do know that Cale has provided lady number two with lots and lots of good practice."

He laughed.         

Dropped

Have you ever heard the saying, "God didn't bring you this far to drop you on your ass?"

It's one of those trite little sayings that people say to you when your reserves are empty, and the general idea is for you to have "faith" that things are going to work out somehow.  It's a convenient little thing for the people who on their feet to say to the people who are not.

I still wish I could put into words the despair I feel about my son not talking.  It's not like a one time slam of hopelessness.  Instead it's like someone's put a little hole in my tank.  So it just leaks hope, slowly, steadily, agonizingly, during every moment of every day.  It must be what it feels like to bleed to death, only I never seem to die.  I just keep draining and draining.

I can hardly stand to participate in my son's therapies anymore.  It's just means one more hour of watching a therapist fail miserably with my son, one more hour of him fighting and screaming and fighting and screaming, one more hour wasted.  Every moment that he doesn't talk past the age of four years old is a moment closer to him never being able to talk at all.  And every day is filled with an endless number of these moments.  Every time I look at my son, he's still not talking.  And I don't know how to, deep down, make that okay with me.  It makes me resent the therapists.  It makes me resent God.  And, worst of all, it makes me resent my son.  It's enough to kill a mother.

Shane and I, and Cale's psychiatrist, have actually reached the point where our biggest hope is to medicate Cale heavily enough to keep the pain he experiences, by not being able to communicate, to a minimum.  He gets incredibly frustrated by not being able to communicate, and he screams and screams and self-harms and screams.  But if he's sedated enough, he's not as disturbed by it.  Then he at least seems happier.  It's a horrible, horrible thing to have your biggest hope become proper sedation.  It's what should happen for a person just before they die, to keep them comfortable.  It's not what should happen for a child who's just starting out in life.

Well, we've recently had a spark of hope.  We found out, a couple of months ago, that the cut-off age for the early invention program in Montana is five years old.  The cut-off age for the same program here in Arizona is three years old.  What that means is that Cale is too old to enter the program here, but he's not yet too old to enter it in Montana.

The state early intervention programs provide ABA therapy for children with Autism, which is a behavior therapy that, when provided 20+ hours per week, has an 85% to 90% success rate in helping children with Autism learn how to talk.  The way it works in Montana goes like this - you put your child's name on the list and, once every three years, they randomly pick fifty kids (yes, out of the entire state) off of the list.  The fifty kids who are picked get 20+ hours of ABA therapy per week, and the rest of the kids in the state don't get any.  The disgusting fact is that they actually call it a "lottery." 

We've always thought it was too late for Cale to get ABA therapy through a state program.  And since Shane's insurance company doesn't cover anything at all for Autism, and ABA therapy is impossibly expensive to pay for one privately, I had resigned myself to believing that Cale might never learn to talk.  But this news brought us some hope again.  If he did win this "lottery" then he would get 20+ hours of ABA therapy per week until he was eight years old.

The problem, of course, is that in order to put your child's name on the list, you must be a resident of the state of Montana before your child turns five (which, for Cale, is on Sept. 8th of this year).  So we decided that we needed to move back to Montana and that we needed to do it fast.

There were other reasons to move back as well.  I could afford to go back to school and work on my doctorate in Montana.  And, our entire family lives in Montana.  And, we've reached the point, financially, where we can't make our house payment here in Arizona anymore.

When we bought our house here, we didn't yet know that we had two disabled children who would require someone to be around for countless, useless therapy sessions every day.  We also always assumed that Cale would go to all day kindergarten this year, freeing me up to go back to work about the same time our students loan payments came due.  However, as it turns out, he misses the kindergarten cut-off age here by one week.  Therefore, he has to do another year of pre-school (which is only two hours per day, four days per week).  I tried to fight this, playing the special ed. card and everything.  But they still won't let him into kindergarten this year.  So I have to stay home with him for another year, and our student loans have come due, and they've made it painfully clear that we can't defer them any longer.  In a nut-shell, we're losing our house.  

My grandma wants us to move back to Montana and get Cale on this list so badly that she offered to help us buy my mom's old house in Montana.  It's only a two bedroom with an unfinished basement.  But we figured it would be worth it for our three kids to share a room until we could get the basement finished, especially if it meant Cale could get on this list.  So we devised a plan of attack, and tackled several things simultaneously.

We went back to Montana for six weeks and rented my mom's house so that we could get it ready to move into.  At the same time, Shane worked virtually.  The idea was for him to show the company that he works for that he could do his job virtually.  That way, they might be okay with him working from Montana on a permanent basis.  He put in extra hours and took business calls at all hours of the day and night (of course, these are things he always does anyway), and he did such a good job that they complimented him on no one noticing that he was in another state.  And since other employees from this company work virtually, Shane thought it was a no-brainer that they'd let him do it too.

At the end of the six weeks, once we'd really gotten all of the information and had finalized the decision, Shane called and asked his boss about staying in Montana permanently.  He explained the early invention program and what it might mean for Cale, and he asked his boss to support him.  His boss did support him, which meant that it was a go.  However, the boss informed Shane that it could be a bit of a process to get it finalized.  So we came back to Arizona and began the "process."

I have to say, I almost felt like I was coming back to life again.  It was like someone had plugged the hole and my tank was filling up again all by itself.  It had been so long since I'd felt that way.  And I kept repeating to myself and to anyone else who would listen, "There's still hope of Cale learning to talk.  Can you believe there's still hope of Cale learning to talk?"  I can't tell you how it nourished me to have that kind of hope again.  My sweet, sweet boy, would have a chance.  And we would be able to give him that chance.  And we were already devising ways to get him off the medication.  Because our boy might have a chance of learning how to talk. 

I was also excited that I'd be able to go back to school and begin work on my doctorate.  You see, Cale doesn't miss the kindergarten cut-off in Montana.  He'd go to kindergarten all day there, and I'd be freed up during the day to begin school again myself.  We'd have a little house that was our very own, which took a great deal of the sting out of losing our house here.  And we'd be with family and friends again.  Wow.  With all that we've been through in the last few years, it was finally all going to be worth it.  With all that we've been through, we were finally going to be able to pick up our poor, old, brutalized hearts, and go home.  Where our son would have a chance at learning how to talk.  God.  It all just seemed too unbelievably good to be true.

Well, it was of course.  The company said, "No."

The decision didn't come from Shane's boss.  The decision came from upper levels, levels high enough to be completely detached from Cale and whether or not he learns how to talk.  And the whole thing has left my poor husband, my otherwise unusually optimist, cheerful husband, utterly and indescribably down.  He hasn't actually been back to work since he got the news.  

The question for us, at this point, is what exact lengths are we willing to go to to get Cale on this list?  I've already sacrificed my career for the sake of our kids.  Are we willing to sacrifice Shane's as well?  Are we willing to sacrifice the security of all of our children?  Are we really supposed to gut ourselves completely so that Cale might have place on Montana's Wheel of Fortune?  If not, then I guess we stay here.  Where we'll lose our house and hope we can find something to rent with shitty credit.  Where I can't go to school because I have to stay at home to participate in pointless therapies.  And where my son is medicated.  Heavily.  Because he isn't learning how to talk.

I keep trying to find something good in this situation, some little nugget of wisdom to give you here.  But I guess I just don't know what to call this besides, "Dropped on your ass."  And the question for me personally has become - how can a person continue to function when the God that is personal to them, who is supposed to love them and take care of them, lifts them up so high and then drops them with such entirety?  And the answer to that, I'm afraid, is that I really don't know.  Seeing an old camp friend this week isn't even cheering me out of this one.  And seeing an old friend from camp is something, I must confess, I would ordinarily call a miracle.  But this time I'm going to call it a coincidence.