Fly

"Faith is the human component of that mysterious interweaving of divine grace and human intention that can vanquish the power of attachment."

Gerald May

 I used to have flying dreams all the time.  You know the ones?  Where you're running as fast as you can down the middle of a street because you're being chased, and you just... sort of... take off - arms stretched out wide, wind blowing through your hair, you suddenly realize you're actually gliding above the road?

That's always when I realize that I'm dreaming, mainly because I know I'm not a bird.  But also, I'm afraid of heights.  I always have been.  It’s not so much the being up high that bothers me, it’s the seeing the ground from up high that I can’t stand.  And the higher up I am, the worse it is.

I’m wary of looking over the edges of rooftops, balconies, or even the high dive at the local swimming pool.  I can’t stand looking over the edges of tall cliffs, or looking out the windows of high rises, or riding on elevators made of glass that go up more than about two stories.  I don't even particularly like flying in airplanes and, while I'm doing so, have to make a conscious effort not to think about the fact that I'm in giant tin can high up in the sky.  I wouldn't get onto a helicopter or a hot air balloon if you paid me a million dollars to do so, and I probably wouldn’t get onto one of those really tall roller coasters to save my own life.  But as soon as I realize that I'm dreaming, that it isn’t real, I’m able to go with it.  I let myself get a little higher and a little higher and a little higher still, and before long I'm gliding, face down, over housetops and treetops and rivers and hills.  It's fantastic.

I had a Northern Cheyenne medicine man tell me once that when you fly in a dream it means that you're truly free.  But the last time I'd had a flying dream was when we lived in Montana five years ago.  I’ve missed those silly dreams. 

Cale turned five last Thursday.  He didn't get selected for Montana's Early Intervention Program.  And, as far as I can tell, he's now officially too old for any of the state funded early intervention programs that include 20+ hours of ABA therapy per week, because the states reserve their limited high intensity resources for the children with Autism whom they think have the most chance of learning how to talk - children who are under the age of five years old (under the age of three in Arizona).

The cut off age for early intervention, in all the states we’ve researched so far (with the exception of Arizona – Arizona is behind the times on this), is five years old.  So, unless I’ve missed something (and I must confess that I haven’t researched all fifty states yet), it’s too late for Cale to get early intervention now that he’s five.  Geez, have I made my point?  Let me say it again, just to be sure.  It’s too late for Cale to get early intention.  It’s too late.  I think I need to get it through my own head more than I need to get it through yours.

Cale's fifth birthday, for this whole past year, has felt like some sort of giant dead end – a big, concrete wall for me to slam into.  Now, maybe that seems silly to you.  I’ve had a number of people say to me, “Now, now.  Just because Cale doesn’t talk by the age of five doesn’t mean that he never will.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Because there are always cases in which a child with Autism spontaneously starts talking perfectly one day out of absolutely nowhere,” is the response I usually get.

And I sigh, because I tire of people who have no experience living with low functioning autism (for lack of a better thing to call it), who heard once that a friend's aunt's new husband's little sister's boyfriend had a cousin with an Autistic son who spontaneously starting talking at the age of eleven, telling me with all the ignorant hope they can muster that there's still a chance for Cale. 

I usually respond by telling them that my nephew with Autism (actually he’s Shane’s mom’s nephew), who’s in his twenties now, has never said a word in his life, and that there are more of these than there are people who spontaneously start talking one day.

It's a bitchy response, I know.  But what about the children who talk due to years of repetitious labor on the part of their parents?  And what about the children who never talk, in spite of years of repetitious labor on the part of their parents?  I suppose there are times when the problem just magically fixes itself, but that’s not the norm and I’m certainly not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen for Cale.  The fact is that you just never know.  And toying ignorantly with a parent’s hope is unkind, no matter the intention.

The reality is that my son is never going to talk the way that you and I do.  He may not even learn how to tell me his most basic wants and needs.  And I’ve wanted so badly for him to learn how to talk.  And I mean talk.  I don’t mean recite lines out of Dora the Explorer (not that he’s even anywhere near that).  I don’t mean imitate.  I mean really, spontaneously, verbally communicate.  "There's a window of opportunity for teaching him that," they say, one that apparently, according to the state early intervention programs anyway, closes by the age of five.

The unfortunate thing about the rather popular “window of opportunity” theory is that it leaves a parent feeling like they've failed somehow, when I think it’s more probable that the child was never going to talk anyway.  That’s just my opinion of course, but I’ve done all the same things with my two kids with Autism that my sister-in-law has done with her two kids with Autism.  And my daughter Isabel, along with both of my sister-in-law’s boys, all spoke pretty functionally by the age of five.  But Cale, who’s had all the same damn interventions (and more actually), still hasn’t learned. 

Maybe it is my fault.  I guess I’ll never know.  But even if it is, what am I going to do about it?  Beat myself up for the rest of my life?  God picked the wrong woman if that was the goal.  No, what I’ve wanted to do, actually, is to just set my attachment to Cale talking, my hope, my desperation, my indescribable longing to hear words come out of his mouth, which has become toxic to my insides like a rotten, maggot infested, old piece of meat, down onto the ground and walk away from it.  It’s become something that’s my problem, not Cale’s. 

Cale is clearly just being who he is.  And I’m his mother.  I should be able to accept him for who he is.  I should have the attitude of, “If he talks then great, but if he doesn’t then that’s okay too.”  I need to develop this attitude, in fact, for my own sanity.  I just haven’t known how.  I’ve never been particularly gifted at letting go of things going my way.  And this has been a big one.  It’s had my claws dug deep down into it for a very long time - my will hanging off of it like a kitten that won't be pulled from a shirt.

Shane and I were sitting on our bed the night before Cale's birthday, talking about acceptance.  And I asked him how he could accept it – the possibility of Cale never talking – because Shane has genuine peace in his heart about this.  "How is one supposed to accept it?  Really?  How can you accept it?  I don't know how," I said to him, tearing up and looking down at my hands, "How can I accept it?" 

He looked at me in the most loving way and said, "Sweetie.  If Cale needs to change in order for you to be okay, then you're in very big trouble.  Because he may or may not change."

And you know?  He's right about that.  Now, I'm not saying that we plan to stop Cale's therapies or quit trying.  I'm not even really saying that we're giving up hope for him.  We’ll always hope that Cale will learn to talk.  We just need to be okay if he doesn’t.  I’ll keep doing the footwork, but I have to let go of my expectations.  It's been an excruciating extraction (because I really liked my expectations), the final yank of which finally happened on his birthday. 

Thursday morning, I opened Cale's bedroom door and he flew into my arms (our morning ritual).  I hugged him and kissed him and changed his diaper.  Then he ran downstairs and into the kitchen and grabbed his juice cup, thrust it into my hand, and looked up at me.  I said, "Happy birthday sweet boy.  You're five today, you know that?"

He looked at the cup in my hand, so I prompted, "Juice?"

He looked at me, then looked at the cup, then looked at me again.  "JUICE!" I prompted again.

He looked at me.

"Say JUICE," I said, "J UUUI CE."

He just kept looking at me.

"You have no idea it's your birthday, do you?" I finally asked him.  And he didn't.

Something horrible and heavy was yanked out of my chest at that moment.  It hurt so bad that it exhausted me instantly, and I wanted more than anything in the world to go back to bed and not get back up.  But here’s how God works in my life.  I couldn't go back to bed because about fifty of my closest friends had bought me a plane ticket to fly to Montana that day, and I still had to get ready to go.

I didn't have time to think.  I kissed Cale good-bye and put him on the school bus.  Then I finished packing my clothes, drove to the airport, and got on a plane to fly to my friends.  I spent three days in the mountains with them, all fifty of them women.  I forget sometimes how many women I know in Montana, how many women I love and who love me.  I don’t mean to brag, but who could help it?

I didn't used to have women friends.  No, really.  I hung out with a sum total of three girls the entire time I was growing up.  I was friends with boys mostly - nice boys, but boys none-the-less. And I was pretty happy with that until my closest friends grew up, found their significant others, and cut me off like some unwanted skin growth.  That’s when I wished that I had made more girlfriends :).   

Fortunately, over the years since then, I have been lucky enough to discover, cultivate lasting friendships with, and be absolutely blown away by the love of all of these beautiful women.  They brought a birthday cake into the mountains for me (my birthday was Saturday), sung to me, and spoiled me rotten all weekend long.  I ate chocolate under the stars, cried, and laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants.  I was simply swished up, carried over the top of that giant dead end, that big, concrete wall, and set gently back down on the other side of it.  Oh, thank you friends.

On Friday night we built a fire and did a little make-shift ceremony of sorts.  Each of us was supposed to write down, on a little piece of paper, something we were trying to let go of.  Then we were to throw it into the fire in exchange for a fresh cut, white rose.  It was a gorgeous idea, but I couldn't think of what to write down.

I thought, for a moment, that I should write down Cale talking.  But then I thought that maybe I should write down our house (which we're losing) and Shane's job (the round of lay-offs began today - so far so good for Shane though, we'll see what happens tomorrow).  Then I thought maybe I should write down moving back to Montana (something I've really, really, really wanted to do, but haven't gotten to).  Soon I was flustered.  I had too much to write down, so I stopped to think about it for awhile. 

"What's the common denominator throughout all of these things?" I asked myself, “What’s the common denominator that runs through everything in my life that ever brings me misery?”  And that's when it finally hit me.  It's My Will – it’s the need for things to go the way I think they should.       

So I put My Will into the fire and left it in Montana.

The following Monday, when I was back in Arizona doing therapy with Cale, I noticed a difference in how I was interacting with him.  I couldn’t muster up an ounce of care as to whether or not he said the words we were trying to get him to imitate.  As a result, there was no power struggle between us at all.  We just had fun together.

I realized that I was taking the exact same actions as usual, but with a completely different motive.  Instead of my actions being motivated by fear (you need to say these words or you’re going to end up in an institution some day!!), my actions were motivated by faith - the faith that we’re all okay, not that we're going to be okay someday, but that we're all okay right here, right now, right in this very minute, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen.  I just loved on him.  And afterward, the therapist (who's new) told me what an incredible job I did with him (which is new too).  It was the most effective therapy session we’d had in a long time.

After Cale got on the school bus, I had a couple hours before I had to pick up my other kids from school.  I was still exhausted from such a magnificent weekend, so I decided to take a little a nap.  And I, you guessed it, had the first flying dream I’d had in five years.

It wasn’t like my old flying dreams in which I slowly let myself get a little higher and a little higher.  Instead, I ran as fast as I could and dove, head first, off the edge of a very tall cliff (I can’t even begin to imagine why).  I fell for just a moment, and then began to soar, high and fast, over the tops of all these bright green pine trees.  I came to the edge of the forest and burst out over the top of this huge lake, where I could smell the water and the feel mist on my face as I flew.

I knew where I was.  I knew what was happening.  And I knew exactly what it meant.  Just then, I woke to the sound of the little alarm on my cell phone.  I got up and got into my now thirty-seven-year-old-mom mini-van, drove through our tree-less, tract house neighborhood, through the stupid, never ending, Arizona heat, and picked my kids up from their gray, windowless, big box school.  And I did it with a very big smile on my face.