The Flow of Life

Although my oldest son is growing in countless ways in his abilities to navigate life without falling into the catastrophic states that once held greater sway, I am reminded of a time this year when he could not venture on a school hike.  Just moments before our arrival he had expressed real excitement, but as we exited the car he inexplicably changed his mind and could only make it a few steps.

Despite my efforts to offer encouragement and empathy, he looked at me with panic emanating from his eyes;  “I can’t do it Mom!” A flush of redness and sweat punctuated my handsome teen boy’s features. The look he gives me in these moments--and they are heartbreakingly innumerable from his earliest steps--is one of a primal nature, an intense beckoning for rescue.  I've frequently struggled to define what rescue means for my son, so the poignancy of this look has the effect on me of an overwhelming burst of emotions as it draws from a raw and searing core:  the need we all have to protect our children from undue fear and hurt.

A teacher intervened and for a time we tried to console him as a team.  Eventually she guided him to my car where he could voice his fears and laments in privacy.  I found my own place of respite as I walked over to the river’s edge. 

Sunbeams warmed, casting shimmering light and reflection. My son has autism. A river carried the weight of my words away in peaceful currents.   He is reactive; his world often feels chaotic. Geese flew in V formation. I feel helpless sometimes to ease his experience of life. Butterflies fluttered and danced along gentle breezes. I am called to mother often in extraordinary circumstances. Flowering trees scented the air, giving fragrance to a moment of pure beauty intermingling with pure pain.

While a world of orchestrated calm and lovely order surrounded me, my boy was unable to take the steps to walk down a trail on this day. Fully appreciating the natural splendor before me, I breathed in life in all its bewildering heartbreak and joys, flowing in a rhythm of mysterious coexistence.  I calmly accepted what motherhood asked of me, finding solace in the full breadth of view and range of emotions.

Renewed by this pause and buoyed by a profound calling to love and nurture my boy, I walked back to the car. “It’s okay. Let’s go home and make new plans.”  And we did, adding our own soothing and peaceful currents to the flow of life.  

In no way have I been able to always harness such transcendent peace as I did on this day, but I like to aspire to that memory each and every time I find myself tested in my own reactions to my son’s often challenging experiences of the world. I have fallen into useless mind battles of  “whys” and “what ifs.” I have felt resentment rise up within me screaming for release.  I have railed and cried in numerous ways in front of nearly every educator and therapist that has come into our lives.  My journey in motherhood is an ever evolving and expanding process, one of ebbs and flows, one of gentle currents and waves of tumult. As I encourage and watch my son learn to pick himself up and begin again…and again…and again with his never-ending zest and joy for life always in tact, I am inspired by his example, learning better how to do this for myself. 

The human experience is not one of flying high in perfect formation as I’ve often wished.  However in my eyes, my son’s journey and my role in it has had a beauty all its own: joy and triumph in the midst of tremendous struggle; hope, more often than not, now trumping fear as an entire family and a group of loving professionals endeavor to patiently support a boy emerging into a young man as he learns to make sense of all the lows and highs of his life experiences, struggling or soaring on any given day, as we all do.