to-do list

Graves at Arlington National Cemetery

*

To-Do List for Memorial Day Weekend

Take white pants out of storage – Hooray!

Wash towels and bathing suits – sort through to see what still fits the kids

Trim the hedges by the fence

Move the paving stones, call landscaper to see if he wants them

Supermarket:

Hamburgers

Hot Dogs

Buns

Bratwurst?

Mustard

(Check to see if we’re low on relish!)

Farmer’s Market:

Sweet Corn

Green Beans

Honor those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

Find a way to reach out to the families of the fallen.

Think of those who are in harm’s way each and every day.

Teach our children what true sacrifice means.

Show them what honor, gratitude and respect are all about.

Remember.

*

*

In case you can’t read the text it says,

“The only person standing is the man in the wheelchair.”

*

What’s on YOUR list for the weekend?

http://www.uso.org/howtohelp/

unremarkable

yes, she’s wearing cowboy boots. so?

*

The scene should be unremarkable.

A little girl sits on the floor with the family dog. She reaches out to stroke his fur. Her mother chides her gently. “Not too hard, baby. Remember to be gentle with him.” She pets him again, repeating her mother’s words in her own sing-song lilt. “Not too hard. Remember to be gentle!” The mother shakes her head slowly, looks to the father. They exchange a tired smile.

It’s the older sister that speaks first. “Can you believe she’s sitting with him? I mean, seriously, you guys! She’s SITTING on the floor with him! Great job Brooke!”

Yes, the scene should be unremarkable.

But it’s not.

***

When we brought Winston home, Brooke was terrified. For nearly two weeks, she did not set foot on the first floor of our house. She had to be down there of course, as the heart of our house is on the first floor – the kitchen, the den, even the office that houses her beloved computer. So she was there when she had to be. But being the ingenious little critter that she is, she figured out how to work her way from one room to the next literally without setting a foot on the floor. She walked on the furniture, and when there was no furniture to be found, she clawed her way up the side of the nearest parent and hitched a ride like a little stowaway.

For three weeks or so, she was a caricature of fear. If the little guy so much as turned his body toward her she would shake, scream, cling and climb. Anything to get herself up and away – further from the danger. She spent a good deal of her time trying to convince us to put him in his crate or that Daddy wanted to take him for a walk. Again.

We unearthed an old baby gate and used it to create safe zones for her. Rather than penning him in, we essentially penned her in. He was happy as a clam to have the run of the house and she was thrilled to have a place that she knew was Winston-free. She’d stroll around the den like a peacock, knowing that she was ‘safe’ while he happily explored the rest of his new home (excluding the girls’ rooms, which still remain off-limits.)

Slowly – bit by bit, we moved the gate. It migrated around the house, eventually settling by the stairs. Brooke knew that Winston would not come upstairs, but she also knew that he had free reign of the first floor. She remained wary. She was on a constant vigil, demanding to know his whereabouts at all times. If she was convinced he was far enough away, she’d walk between pieces of furniture. Tiny steps on little tiptoes, then right back up again. But it was progress.

One night she fed him a treat. Out of her hand.

We discovered that as long as she was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, she felt safe. They are high enough off the ground to give her comfort and low enough that she could pet him as he roamed by. Eventually, she discovered that if she laid her palm out flat to him, he’d lick it. It tickled her hand and made her giggle. It became a routine at the table, accompanied by a favorite script from Annie. “Come here Winston! Come on Winston! Come on boy! Good Old Winston!” She grinned from ear to ear as he came to her chair to see what was up.

She began to walk on the floor holding just a hand. She protested for a while, but she did it. She’d land on a chair or the couch as though she were sliding into home, but she did it. As she walked the floor, she reassured herself with lines from the social story I’d written for her. ”Winston won’t bite me. He likes to sniff and lick me. He will not bite me.” Once I heard her say, “My best friend Winston will not get me.” I had to laugh.

Night after night, I’d ask the same question. I phrased it seven different ways to Sunday. “Honey, do you want Winston to stay here and live with us?”

Every night, without fail, she made her feelings clear. He loves us. We love him. He would stay. And every night, without fail, I’d go to bed in awe of her strength, her conviction, her limitless bravery. Fear be damned, we were going to keep this dog.

It’s been six weeks now. The baby gate is gone. When Brooke wakes up in the morning, she fills Winston’s water bowl and puts it on his mat. She still wants to know where he is, but less out of fear than interest. When he barks at a squirrel outside, she says, “Thank you, Winston, that’s enough.” He doesn’t listen, but she says it anyway. I have to remind her to be gentle. I’ve caught her putting her fingers right into his mouth, exploring his teeth and feeling around his soft, floppy lips. One day she seemed to be trying to touch his eye-ball. Obviously, we’ve since set some ground rules.

So yes, life with Winston has gotten good. But here’s where it gets sublime.

***

I am picking the girls up from school. I’ve begun to chat with another mom about setting up a play date, so I’m not in my usual spot for pick-up. I can see Brooke’s class, but they don’t see me.

A classmate’s mother has come to pick up her daughter. She stands nearby with her poodle, who is on a leash. A few months ago, Brooke would still ask Ms N to pick her up as soon as she saw the poodle. Ms N would refuse, so Brooke would cling to her instead. More recently, we’ve all been thrilled that she’s stayed calm when she saw her, instead assuring herself (and anyone else who could hear) that it was OK, because she was on a leash.

But on this day, something remarkable will happen.

Brooke will walk away from Ms N. She will walk right up to her classmate’s mom and say, “May I please pet your dog please?” (Yup, not just one, but two pleases. She’s nothing if not polite.)

The classmate’s mom will look shocked as she says, “Of course, Brooke. Go ahead.”

Brooke will squat down RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOG and pet her. She will scooch around the dog to get closer as other kids join in (something that in and of itself would have had her running just weeks ago.)

Her teacher will scan the crowd for me. She will find me, both arms up in the air, celebrating. Ms N will see me shortly thereafter and breathlessly tell me what happened, not knowing I’d seen it all.

Brooke will still be petting the dog.

Yes, the scene should be unremarkable.

But it’s not.

*

*

Ed note: The background story of Winston (and the more general story line of how we came to bring a dog into the home of a child who has historically been terrified of dogs) can be found by clicking here  ….

puppy dog eyes

finding charlie

china

winston

progress

**

Over the years Brooke’s bedtime routine has changed. Or perhaps more accurately evolved. Yes, evolved is a better word. It has incrementally morphed into something different than it once was.

It used to be that as I walked out of her room at the end of every night I’d say, “Mama loves you, baby.”

She would respond with a post-echolalic, ‘”Mama loves you too, baby.”

Those last two lines capped off the performance of our designated roles, straight from the same script every night.

But over time, tiny change by tiny change, the script has changed. In many ways it has become more free-flowing, less rigid. But remnants of the original still remain – comforting in their very sameness.

***

Every night, we lie together in the dark just before bed. I kiss her head, tucking her hair behind her ear and say some version of, “I love you so much, my sweet girl.”

She often responds with a question - “You do?”

To which I answer softly but emphatically, “I do.”

Last night the question was different.

When I said, “I love you, sweet girl,” Brooke quietly asked, “Why?”

I couldn’t see her face in the dark. I don’t know if she really understood what she was asking, or if she was simply trying on the new word she’s been working so hard on mastering with her speech therapist.

It didn’t matter, of course.

“Because you’re my baby girl and I’m your Mama,” I said.

“You are?”

“I am. And I have always loved you and I will always love you.”

“You will?”

“Yup. But I don’t just love you because I’m your Mama.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope, I love you for a million other reasons too.”

I traced her hairline with my index finger.

“I love you because you are funny and smart and sweet and generous. Do you know what generous means, Brooke?”

“Yeah.” (code for – No, but please don’t ask me another question.)

“It means that you like to share.”

“Yeah.”

“And you know what else, sweetheart?”

“What?”

“You are the bravest girl I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

“I am?”

“Yes, baby. You are.”

We laid together for a few more minutes in the dark. Eventually, we played out the rest of our roles, true to the remainder of the script.

As I walked out of her room, I stopped at the door and found myself saying what I’d always said. Perhaps I’m just as much to blame.

“Mama loves you, baby.”

The soft reply was muffled by the tangle of comforter and stuffed animals, but the words were clear.

“Mama loves you too, baby.”

I walked out with an overwhelming sense of peace.

Once in a very rare while the very best progress is the kind that leads you right back to where you started.

marshmallow and a month old play date

**

The following post contains two stories that may seem pretty incongruous. They have no apparent connection to one another, other than the fact that they both happened last night. But hey, that’s the way our lives work around here. There are almost always two (and often three) completely disparate conversations happening concurrently as we work our way through a day. It’s not always easy to live, and it may not be easy to read. But it is life as I know it.

**

Katie’s hamster died last night. We’d only had her for six weeks or so, but there she was, not moving a whit. Luau took her out of her cage and gently prodded her. It took what felt like a lifetime, but she took a breath. Or convulsed. I have no idea. What I can tell you is that for over two hours, Luau held that hamster in his hand. He fed her sugar water through a straw as we’d been advised to do, and he stroked her fur. She even seemed to perk up for a little while. She began to move around ever so slightly. She sniffed the carrot that we held under her nose. That little bugger fought like hell until she couldn’t fight anymore.

Yes, it was a hamster. Yes, this all probably sounds absurd. But watching her die was awful.

Having to tell Katie this morning was far worse.

***

A month or so ago, Luau and Brooke dropped by a friend’s house to drop something off. Luau got to talking with the mom and Brooke played with the little girl. Luau came home completely out of sorts. The little girl had very vocally refused to share any of her toys or games with Brooke. She had gotten pretty aggressive about making sure that she didn’t touch anything in the house. I knew how he felt. A few years ago we sat through a ‘family play date’ that went much the same way. It’s hard to watch another child get away with discarding all the rules of social interaction. Particularly when your child has had to painstakingly learn them the way that ours do.

Last night – one month later – Brooke brought it up for the first time.

“Samantha wasn’t nice to me when we went to the Smith’s house,” she said.

Luau was in Katie’s room holding a dying hamster. Katie was holed up in my room – afraid to look. And Brooke was processing – finally – a play date from four weeks ago. Uh huh.

“She yelled at me,” she said.

I asked her how it made her feel when Samantha yelled at her.

‘I feeled mad,’ she said.

She has her verb tenses down pat. They were out the window. It didn’t matter. She was telling me how she FELT.

“She yelled at me because I stoled her toys,” she said.

I took a deep breath. For over a month she’d believed that she had STOLEN toys that she had been HANDED to play with? What else is in there? What other misconceptions float in that little head waiting, just waiting to process? It kills me to think about it.

I explained that she had not ‘stolen’ the toys. I reminded her that the mom had offered those things to her to play with. I told her that good friends share their things with guests.

“She yelled, ‘MINE!’ at me,’ she said – using her best monster voice for the ‘MINE.’

I asked if she thought that was OK. She said it wasn’t. We talked about what it means to be a friend and what it means to make people feel welcome in your home. We talked about sharing and being a good person. I wondered why we were the ones having the conversation.

***

This morning, I woke Katie to tell her the news about Marshmallow. I laid down with her and held her as she cried. Together, we came up with a vision of marshmallow in heaven. She sleeps on a cloud of crunchy vegetables and runs on top of her exercise wheel all day long. (As she had a strange penchant for doing in life. Dang little critter liked to do things her own way.)

“She’s happy there, right Mama?” she asked. “Can you promise me she’s happy? Do you really KNOW that or are you just guessing? Please tell me you can know.”

I told her that I believed that she was happy. That was all I had.

She asked me about criminals and down there. “What if they murder people, Mama?” she asked. “I mean, can someone go to heaven if they kill someone? What if they go to jail and get out and kill someone else? Wouldn’t they have to go down there?”

I told her the truth. That I find it really hard to believe that there is a hell, but that I just don’t know.

She asked me why. “Why did Marshmallow have to die?”

I told her that we’re too small to understand why sometimes. “But Mama,” she said, “you’re not small.”

I told her I’m a whole lot smaller than God.

“But how big is God then?” she asked.

“Far bigger than anything we are capable of imagining,” was my answer. Because honestly, I can’t. I can’t imagine that there is a God that big. But I want to believe it. And far more urgently, I want HER to believe it. So I answered on a technicality – that God is bigger than my imagination.

“Bigger than this house?” she asked.

Of course, baby. Far bigger. Bigger than the whole world.”

“With all the people on it?”

“Yup.”

“Bigger than the Milky Way?”

“Yup.”

The UNIVERSE?” Her eyes had grown wide.

“Yup.”

“What about the aliens?”

“Yup, bigger than them too.”

“I wonder if there really are aliens, Mama,” she said.

I was happy for the distraction from her grief. I pretended to be an alien. Sorta. I put my hand over my face (I don’t know why; it just seemed kinda alien-ish) and said in a robotic, alien sounding voice, “Hello earthling. I am an alien.”

She barely restrained an eye-roll. “Mama?”

I kept up the alien voice. My hand was still over my face after all, so it seemed appropriate. “Yes earthling?”

“An alien wouldn’t call itself an alien. An alien would just think it was a normal human being. Or – you know .. whatever. WE would be the aliens to the alien. Because WE would be the ones who were ‘different’. Know what I mean?”

I smothered her in a hug. In a decidedly non-alien voice I told her that I want to be her when I grow up. She laughed at me.

And then she started to cry again.

“Mama,” she said. “I’m just really sad.”

“I know baby. I know. It’s OK.’

“No it’s not. It’s not OK.” She was starting to yell. “I want Marshmallow back! I don’t want her to be dead!”

“I know, honey,” I said. “I meant it’s OK to feel it. Whatever it is that you feel is OK.”

She cried. I held her.

The words came to me.

I’m helping her cry.

I guess I’m getting more mileage out of that e-mail than I’d thought.

This post has been dedicated to the memory of Marshmallow – a heck of a hamster.

you hear that?

earlier in the day, in the few minutes of spare time before school

**

Luau and I sit in the office not long after dinner. I am behind the desk tapping at the keyboard; he sits in the worn leather chair by the bookshelf. Winston is on his lap.

The girls have gone upstairs. Together.

Luau and I discuss the business of the house. We compare schedules to plan an appointment. I make a call to confirm it and put it on the calendar.

Little-girl voices waft down the stairs.

First a laugh, then a happy squeal.

Luau stops talking.

“You hear that?”

A smile has been steadily rising from somewhere deep in my being.

“Yup.”

My girls are playing together.

Alone – no one’s idea but their own.

For the second time in one day.

This moment is not small.

Not small at all.

right on time at hopeful parents

.

.

It was an innocent enough e-mail from my friend Carrie.

‘Just hoping everything is OK,’ she said, ‘because I noticed you haven’t posted at Hopeful Parents today.’

I looked at my calendar.

May 17th.

Crap!

How could I have forgotten?

I looked at the time.

5:30 pm

Crap!

We were just about to sit down to dinner.

Crap!

Seriously, how on earth could I just FORGET?

I trolled through my Draft Box, but found it woefully empty. There was not a dang thing in there that I could publish. Instead, it was full of splintered ideas and various kernels of ‘Ooh, wouldn’t this be a good post someday when I have the time and energy to pull it together?’ You know, like NEVER.

The only thing I had was the half-finished post that I’d intended to publish here today. And very little time.

In a frenzy, I sat down at the computer after dinner. Luau generously accepted my mutterings as explanation (something like, Crap, Crap, Crap, I can’t believe I forgot.) and brought the girls up to shower. I hastily wrote the second half of what was to be today’s post, cut and pasted it over to Hopeful Parents, cringed and hit ‘Publish.’

I’m not a ‘throw it together’ kind of girl. It’s just not my style. I’m more of a ‘throw it together and then edit it to within an inch of its life’ kinda girl. But life doesn’t always work the way we’d like it to, does it? Sometimes, the curtain goes up before we’ve gotten into our places or even finished shimmying into our costumes. It ain’t always pretty, but the show goes on with or without us.

So here it is ..

Right on Time

(Thanks, Carrie)

a prized collection

**

Katie’s been dying to start a collection. It doesn’t seem to matter much WHAT she collects, so long as she can say that she does indeed collect SOMETHING.

She’s given a go at seashells. We’ve brought them back from beaches far and wide, cleaned and bleached and dried them out – only to find them carelessly scattered throughout the house days later.

She tried Webkinz for a time, but the gild was off that lily as soon as the kids around her had clearly moved on to the next thing – then the next and the next.

“Mama, did you ever collect anything?” she asked recently.

I thought back to my childhood. “Well, I collected little boxes for a while,” I said. “I had all kinds of boxes – carved wood, glass, porcelain – I just loved fancy little boxes.”

She asked if I still had them. I told her that but for a special few, I couldn’t say what had become of them.

“Do you collect anything NOW, Mama?” she asked impatiently.

I reminded her of the crystal figurines that Luau had bought for me over the years. Every holiday he’d buy another. I had loved receiving them.

“So what happened?” she asked. “Do you still collect them?”

“Well, I did, honey,” I said, “but then the corner cabinet got all filled up. That was when I told Daddy that I was pretty sure I had enough.”

She wasn’t satisfied. Apparently, I was deficient as a human being unless I could come up with SOMETHING that I actively collect.

I thought hard but finally shrugged. “Unless you want to count shoes, baby, I think I’ve got a whole lot of nothin’ on this one.’

***

I sit at a business dinner with a man I’ve met just once before this evening.

We laugh, we talk, we get to know one another. Typically the talk of family in this setting barely skims the surface. The vitals suffice …Do you have kids? Oh great, boys or girls? How old are they? God, aren’t those just the best ages? … and the conversation marches on.

But it is obvious from the start that this conversation will be different.

We begin to talk about perspective. He tells me about a meeting with a client who had recently suffered a life changing loss. I nod. The client is a mutual friend and I know well how hard it’s been. He says, “It just puts it all in perspective, you know? The business matters, but it’s not life and death. It can’t be.”

In years past, I would have sat and smiled as he spoke, nodded in affirmation and moved on to the next topic. But not today. Today I am different.

I tell him that I understand completely. That I comprehend on a cellular level what really matters. I tell him why.

I tell him that nearly four years ago, my younger daughter was diagnosed with autism. That the process of becoming the mother that she needs has changed me in some ways, galvanized me in others. He says he likes the choice of the word, ‘galvanized.’ I have to smile.

I tell him that I’ve been through things very recently that have forced me to examine my priorities. That life has pushed me to decide and to declare what I value. And what I don’t. I tell him that the process sucks, but that I highly recommend it. We laugh.

Time passes quickly. Our conversation twists and turns, woven around – but not limited by – the common thread of the dinner’s original purpose.

I don’t know him well enough to read his expression, but I can see that his face has changed. He is suddenly quiet. It looks as though he’s searching for words. I sit back – wait for him to find them. It feels important.

“There’s something I’d like you to know,” he says. “It’s just .. well .. what you said before, it hit a chord with me and .. well …”

I get the feeling this is not a man who is often at a loss for words.

I’ve learned to wait, so I do.

He goes on to tell me that he grew up with a sister who had significant learning disabilities. He puts ‘learning disabilities’ in quotes. “They never really knew what to call it back then,” he says. He speaks of her with a palpable tenderness.

He talks about the work that his family has done with a local community organization for people with developmental disabilities. He explains that he has become aware of autism through that work. He says he’d love for us to come to a fundraising event they sponsor each summer. It’s obviously a source of great pride.

I look across the table through an entirely different lens than the one I started with. “I always say,” I tell him, “that the siblings can change the world.” I don’t know if he’s comfortable with the compliment, so I leave it at that.

I showed up to have dinner with a colleague.

I will leave dinner with a friend.

**

On the way home, I realize that I have something to tell Katie.

I do collect something after all. And it’s something that I can keep on collecting long after the corner cabinet is full.

Over these past few years, I’ve been collecting stories.

As I’ve come to tell my own with more ease, I’ve been blessed to have gotten them in return from every corner imaginable. This journey has taught me that when we dig just beneath the surface, we find that every human being that we meet has a life beyond what we think we see. Everyone has challenges; everyone has struggles; and everyone has triumphs that mean far more to them than we might imagine.

Everyone has a story.

**

But I do still have some really kick-@ss shoes.

do you?

***

You’d think I would get it.

I mean, hell – I spend half my time thinking about and talking about (and writing about) my daughter’s challenges.

I virtually live in the language of difference – or at least I live virtually in the language of difference.

So how is it that I’m still taken aback every time I see those differences in motion?

For God’s sake, how am I still surprised that my daughter really does have special needs?

***

I ran back to the school yesterday to bring something into Brooke’s room after drop-off. (An extra pair of pants if you must know because the ones she had on were threatening to slide right off of her non-existent hips.)

I poked my head in the door to let Ms N know that they’d be in her locker. In so doing, I caught just a simple snapshot of my daughter’s day.

Ms L was gently herding the class to the center mat for their morning meeting. Little ones came and sat down one by one. Stragglers were admonished with a subtly raised eyebrow.

Brooke was not moving toward the mat, nor was she being admonished for lagging. Instead, she sat at her table with Ms N plodding through her morning work.

Her worksheet was clipped to the large blue easel that helps her write. When her OT first installed it at her seat, we asked Ms N to ensure that its benefits outweighed its awkward and unwieldy presence in the room. Apparently they do.

She looked frustrated.

***

And there it was – Brooke’s world – or at least a part of it.

Her IEP in action – the preview and review and individual teaching. All of the supports – the easel, the grips, the extra time – they are giving her what she NEEDS. We’ve worked hard to put each and every one of them in place and I am grateful for them.

But somehow – even after all the hours spent thinking about them, strategizing about them, creating them and even meeting to evaluate them – I’m still surprised to see them in action.

You’d think I’d get it.

***

Do you?

Do you get used to it?

Ever?

to you

***

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.

~ Rajneesh

I knew that motherhood would change me.

Or at least I knew that it would re-order my priorities.

What I didn’t know was that it would re-order my soul.

I didn’t know that in lending my body to my babies I would surrender my very being to a process unfathomably larger than myself.

I didn’t know that in so doing, I would find faith. And Faith.

I didn’t know that along with my babies’ births would come a vulnerability that would settle permanently in my heart.

That although the physical scars would heal, the karmic chasm would remain open and raw – letting in the extremes of the joy and pain of this life as a mother – unfiltered, unadulterated, unmitigated.

What I didn’t know was that loving my babies would be the greatest gift imaginable.

***

To those who mother slowly, thoughtfully, cautiously and to those who throw themselves headlong into the messy, sticky, torturous sweetness of it all without ever looking back.

To those who keep a strict schedule and to those who don’t keep a strict anything at all.

To those who home-school and to those who are relieved to see the yellow bus in the morning.

To those who sing in the choir and to those who pray quietly every night at their babies’ bedsides.

To those who bake for hours and to those who stop at the bakery on the way home from work.

To those who hold their children close and to those who can’t wait to meet them – knowing they are out there somewhere, waiting to come home.

To those who mother intuitively and to those who over-analyze each and every decision they make.

To those who write their stories and to those who read them.

To those who have lived through the unfathomable pain of losing a child and to those whose hearts are with them.

To those who shout from the sidelines and to those who coach the team.

To those who pray that someday their child can BE on the team.

To those who have children with special needs and to those who teach their children respect and compassion for those who do.

To those whose children can say, “Thank you, Mom,” with words and to those whose children don’t need words at all to say just that – and so much more.

To those who testify before congress and to those who work for months to summon the courage to talk to one neighbor about their child’s differences.

To those who change the world simply by showing their children the rewards of a life lived with empathy and love, respect and appreciation for their fellow human beings.

To those who know what it means to be reborn a mother.

To YOU.

A very, very Happy Mother’s Day.

what i wish for

**

The day was unseasonably warm, so most of the guests at Katie’s first birthday party had made their way outside. A cousin and I sat on the steps watching the little ones swarm the swing set. We intervened in a couple of near misses, but for the most part we sat, watched and chatted about the kids.

Her daughter called to her from the swings, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Can you push me pleeeeeease?”

“I’m comin’,” she called back with a sigh.

“I can’t wait until Katie starts calling me like that,” I said. “It must be amazing to hear your baby call you Mommy.”

As her daughter yelled again, “Mommmmmmy!!!” my cousin chuckled. “Careful what you wish for, kid.”

***

I never should have remembered that conversation. It was one of a million others just like it.

Within short order, Katie would indeed be calling me (and calling me and calling me and calling me.)

So why? Why did that one moment – among so many others – become an indelible memory?

***

At nearly four, Brooke still did not use my name. She didn’t use anyone’s name. She threw various shards of language into the ether hoping the right person would pick up on them and somehow divine what she wanted or needed. It was the best she could do with the tools that she had.

Besides, she had other ways to convey with whom she was trying to interact. Nothing if not resourceful, she’d pull me up from the table by a single finger. She’d hold it out in front of us as we walked across the floor until I’d find myself pointing at the refrigerator. Her little hands would guide my finger to the handle and she’d wait. I’d open the door and she’d say ‘This.’ I’d point at everything in the fridge until – behold! – we’d found it. Not exactly, “Mama, may have an apple, please?” but hell, it worked.

***

Over time, she began to use our names. It was not a natural process. Like everything else surrounding her use of language it had to be slowly, methodically introduced – then shaped, prompted and practiced.

At seven, she now plays with my name.

“Hi, Meeeeeema,” she says, waiting for me to laugh and say, “Hi, Breeeeeke.”

“I love you, Moh-ma,” she says (with a long ‘O’), knowing that I’ll say, “I love you too, Broh-ke.”

I’m Mama in the day-to-day.

I’m ‘Mom’ when she needs help.

I’m ‘Mommy’ when she’s scared.

***

Last night, we snuggled together for a little TV time before bed. Her arm stretched across my chest and her little fingers tickled my neck. Blue’s Clues played in the background. I wouldn’t have moved on a bet.

“Mama?” she said quietly.

“Mmm?”

“I love you.”

As I have so many times over the years, I thought of my conversation with my cousin. And then I thought of all of my friends whose children don’t yet speak, but who will never give up on hearing their sweet voices say their names.

I squeezed my girl as I said, “I love you too, baby. I love you too.”

***

I wonder if, soon after the Inauguration, the new President gets a little kick out of being called ‘Mr President.’ I imagine that for a while he revels in the novelty of it. Like every time anyone addresses him he takes a moment for a little inner chuckle – ‘Dude, that’s ME! I’m the President!’ I wonder if he calls people into his office just to hear them say it. OK, probably not. There’s all that business of running the country and everything.

But I have to imagine that’s pretty close to it – to how I feel EVERY time my youngest child uses my name. ‘That’s ME!’ I think. ‘I’M HER MOM.’ I can think of no greater title to hold and no greater gift than hearing it from her lips.

***

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.

In honor of all of the mothers who long to hear their babies call their names – whether their ‘babies’ are two or four or ten or twenty – please, consider a donation to any of the amazing charities who support our community and who work alongside us to bring our children’s voices forth from the silence.

Because every mother deserves that gift.

Thank you.

***

ASA

Autism Speaks

TACA