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Ask me how I feel today…

Go on, I dare you! Ask me how I feel!

Well, since you ask… I am streaming with a cold, my head is congested, I am sneezing non-stop, and because of my upcoming wedding, I am stressed to the hilt.

And yet…

I feel GREAT!!!

So I have a cold. But it’s only a cold. I don’t have cancer, or multiple sclerosis, or HIV.

So I’m too sick to run right now, and will quite possibly have to miss my race this weekend. But I have two legs that work, and I am physically fit, and I will run again when this cold is gone. I have it way easier than my amazing friend Fran, who has become a runner despite the fact that she lives with cystic fibrosis.

And OK, it’s still a little chilly for my liking, and we’re still getting the odd snowfall in late March. But I live in Canada, not Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya, and all we get falling out of the sky is snow and rain, not bullets.

When I go outside, I have to wear a coat. When people in Japan go out, they have to wear masks to avoid inhaling dust from earthquake and tsumani debris, and they have to worry about radiaion poisoning.

I am stressed from wedding planning. I know people who are stressed from divorce, and other people, like my Mom, who grieve for their soulmates who are no longer here.

While we’re on the subject, every day I grieve for the wonderful Dad who raised me. I have a friend who grew up without a true Dad, but with a child rapist who happened to be her father by biology only.

I spend two hours a day commuting, and there are days when it becomes overwhelming. But I have a job to commute to. I can afford to feed my family and buy birthday presents for my children.

It is true, I do have a child with autism, and every day brings its own unique challenges. But I have my kids, and every time I hug them I think of my other amazing friend Amy, who sat at her baby’s bedside for five months before cradling him in her arms as he died.

So how do I feel?

I’d say my life is pretty darned good, and I am truly grateful for what I have.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hurricanemaine/3429008592/)

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A Scrap Of Paper That Changed My Life

I was numb with shock as I drove home that day. Although I was only 22, life had already jaded me to the point where I never believed that anything good would actually last, but I had no idea, when I woke up that morning, that things would change so abruptly.

I went to work that morning, just as I did every other morning. It was my first real job  – a job with a regular paycheque AND benefits – and I was so proud of it. I had been there for about nine months, and for the first time since my early University days a few years previously, I felt as if I was starting – just starting – to get some direction.

I had emerged intact – bruised and damaged and hurting, but intact – from the wreckage that my life had been, and I had somehow managed to create the semblance of a normal existence. I was proud of this. I was starting to like myself again, to feel kind of OK about who I was.

I was starting to think that just maybe, I was not a complete failure who was capable of nothing more than disappointing myself and everyone around me.

That day, I lost my job.

It was a crushing blow. All of those feelings of failure and disappointment came flooding back. I hadn’t sorted out my life at all. The sense of direction, the sense that things had been getting better – that was all a mask, something to hide the fact that I was and always would be a complete screw-up.

As I drove home, I didn’t know how I was going to tell my parents. It seemed as if they had just seen me through my last crisis, and here I was, about to show up with another one. How was I going to face my Mom and tell her that I had lost the job that she had been instrumental in me getting? She had made the initial contact and arranged the interview for me at a time when I would never have been able to do it myself. And now it was all gone. I was a disappointment once again.

I felt low. So low that I actually contemplated wrapping my car around a telephone pole with me in it.

When I got home and blurted out the news, my parents wrapped me in a bear-hug. Their love and support covered me like a soft, soothing blanket. Take your time, they said. Catch your breath, give yourself a chance to recover, and then try again.

They assured me that this was not a reflection on my worth as a person, that I would indeed make a success of my life. I didn’t believe them, not really, but I really needed to hear it.

About ten days later, I was at a loose end, so I decided to tidy my desk drawers. I must have had six years’ worth of old papers and notebooks in there. It was a veritable time capsule that took me right back to my high school days, to the time before.

I went through my old diaries and books and scraps of paper, and reminisced. I reflected on the days when my whole life had stretched before me like a blank canvas, when I had not made bad decisions that would create emotional tsunamis that would ripple through time. Most of the items went into the garbage. I was sad to throw away these mementoes of my youth, but that stuff hardly seemed relevant to the way my life was now.

I pulled out an advertising leaflet and automatically started throwing it in the garbage bag without even looking at it. Just before it went into the bag, though, my eye caught the word “Israel”.

Curious. Why would I be in possession of an advertising leaflet that had anything to do with Israel? Presumably it must have been of some value to me at some point, otherwise I wouldn’t have kept it.

It turned out to be a travel brochure for people wanting to go to Israel to experience life on a Kibbutz. The brochure posed a series of questions in the form of a checklist. Do you want to see a part of the world that is like no other? Are you trying to decide what to do with your life? Have you reached a difficult crossroads?

Yes, yes and YES. As I read the brochure, I grew increasingly excited. I called the number on the brochure and asked some questions. Yes, the company that produced the brochure still ran the Kibbutz program. Yes, it was true that all I needed to pay was the cost of the airfare plus an administrative fee. No, there was no waiting list – I could leave with the next group to depart in six weeks’ time.

With fumbling fingers, I dug out my latest bank statements. With the money I had saved up, I could just about cover the costs. I wouldn’t have spending money, but that was OK. I didn’t want to go shopping. I just wanted to go.

I booked my spot there and then, and then, with my face involuntarily pulled into a completely unfamiliar-feeling expression that I later realized was a smile, I went to talk to my parents, to tell them that I was going to Israel.

Little did I know how completely this spur-of-the-moment decision would alter the course of my life.

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Best Vacation Ever

These pictures were taken during the Best Holiday Ever, back in 2008. Gerard and I packed the boys up along with five hundred of their favourite belongings, and drove down to New York.  While we were on the road, my mother was in the air, flying in from South Africa.  We all met up at my brother’s Manhattan apartment, spent a night there, and then drove to Long Island the following day, where we spent two of the happiest and most carefree weeks I can remember.

We planned the crap out of this vacation: knowing how all of the changes associated with vacations can affect a child with autism, we had to be prepared. There was some concern that we were “overplanning”.

It paid off, though.  Thanks to all of the planning, George had all of his routines in place, along with all of the things associated with those routines, even though we were in unfamiliar surroundings.

The house we stayed in (borrowed from a friend of my brother’s) was a hit.  The beach was a hit.  Most of all, being with my mom and my brother made the vacation something truly special.

Negotiating early morning Manhattan traffic at the end of a 12-hour drive

Almost there! Driving to my brother's apartment.

George gazing off into the distance

James, enjoying his first time on a real beach!

Drawing in the sand with James

George on tippy-toes - love this picture!

James watches as I bury George in the sand (Mom and brother are in the background)

Like I said, it was the Best Vacation Ever.  I even got to go running a couple of times!

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Chances Of Hope

It is incredible – and sometimes so desperately sad – how everything can change in the blink of an eye.  Just a week ago, I was tweeting and posting messages on my Facebook wall asking people to think healing thoughts for the survival of a little baby known affectionately as Capt. Snuggles.

Today I am asking everyone to send out thoughts of strength and love to his grieving mother, Amy, three days after the tiny body of Capt. Snuggles was laid to rest.

It’s one of those situations where words are not enough.  What do you say to a Mom who has just buried her child?  “I’m sorry your baby died”?  That seems so trite, so inadequate, not nearly enough to express the depth of the sorrow I feel, which is nothing compared to what Amy must be feeling.

It’s not to say that I haven’t tried.  I have left Amy messages letting her know that I am here for her, that I am grieving with her, that I want to do what I can to shoulder some of the heaviness that is filling her world right now.  When she is ready, if and when she needs to, she will reach out to me.  She knows (I hope!) that I am here.  For now, that is what matters.

There is a message that I want to put out there, though, to everyone who reads this.  Capt. Snuggles, during his five month stay in the hospital, underwent a massive array of medical treatments.  That he had hope at all was due to the fact that a family allowed the liver of their loved one to be given to the Captain.  Without that liver, there wouldn’t have been hope.

If you are healthy, if there is no medical reason for you not to, please sign your donor cards.  Please talk to your families, let them know that if they ever have to say goodbye to you, that you would like for your organs to be used to save someone’s life, or at the very least, to give someone hope, to give a family hope.

Capt. Snuggles also received blood.  Many, many units of blood.  Again, that blood would not have been there if there were not people out there willing to give away blood of their own.  These events have inspired me to become a blood donor myself.  I donated for the first time on Thursday, January 20th, and I will donating again in March.  Every 56 days, I will roll up my sleeve, and whisper a prayer for the unknown person who will receive the blood flowing out of me.

I am hoping that by writing this, at least one person who reads it will consider becoming a blood donor.  I know that there are people who are not able to donate for medical reasons.  There are people who really do need to keep their blood for themselves.  But for the majority of us, giving away blood is a piece of cake.  I had absolutely no ill effects after my encounter with Canadian Blood Services.  I felt great, and I didn’t even have a bruise.

If you are medically able to, please look into what it will take to donate blood in your area.  Please think about saving a life, bringing hope and joy to a family.