Didn't We Almost Have it All?

LRHF’s therapy program ended. Just. Ended. It took surprisingly little to end the program around which we scheduled 4 hours a day, 6 days a week for the past year or so. Just a meeting and a job loss cost us that program that was created for my son, ( Remember it now? All those posts about “hope” and selling my soul. Whatever.) Yeah, that’s the one.

Gone, Baby, Gone.
Gone with the Wind.
Gone, Gone, Gone.
So what does this mean for us who make Havoc and Shine? Hmmm...I'll try to explain how it changed every one of us, how it showed us just the tip of LRHF’s potential, and how whetted his little six-year-old appetite for more, more, more. And now, how big a rip, a gash, a gore it left in it's wake, in our hopes. How pointless it all seems now.

Oh, but how rude of me!
I should bring you up to speed. Won’t take long.
Friday: all okay. Program all systems go. Business as usual. Same old, Same old.
Monday: scheduled meeting. Program’s over. Oh. I'm sorry, what? (and WTF?!)
BUT the good news is that we have a referral. Really great too, because it's the only other show in town. So I called the referral (caught her on the way to her Lake House don't you know), she made it palpably clear in her tone that she wasn’t interested in helping my kid by virtue of our zipcode She was suddenly very short-staffed. Stretched sooo thin. Too far for her staff to come. (Umm...no, no it really isn't)
We live in a lovely ‘hood. It is a mixed ‘hood. It is the Deep South. ‘Nuff said? Exactly.

And now you are up to speed.

So here we are. What a steaming freaking mess. *I* have learned nothing about doing this mom-to-autie gig better. Fuzzy and Bigboy don’t know what to do with their quirky damn selves except push each other’s buttons. Dh is at work for all of this, so he’s all like, “what’s the big deal?” You want to know to whom it is a big deal, a big damned motherfreaker of a deal? It’s a big deal to LRHF. Yeah. He’s sad. He’s mad. He’s stimmy. He’s biting kids at school. He’s really not happy at all that he no longer has a staff. What’s more, he’s really quite sure that it’s Mommy’s fault. Yup. And he fully intends that Mommy will know it is her fault via an impressive variety of non-verbal actions. Some are potentially amusing, it's true, because they are so very, very clearly directed at me. Not funny for the target. He stops the washer and dryer mid-cycle. Not good in Deep Southern Heat. He hides my tools, or worse, uses them. He covers my plants with sand. Found some of my half-done (and quite frankly half-assed) arty project thingies in the trash. He got out all my spice extracts, lined them up beside the sink, waited for my full attention, and then systematically dumped them down the drain
(It was at this point that Fuzzy walked by and said, “Mmm…I smell muffins!” *sigh*).

Then there are the not-so-amusing-and-potentially-dangerous ways he shares his feelings. Like running downhill toward the road. Like attempting to do his own cooking. With the oven. On Broil. Like busting the lock on Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom door because he knows, you see, he knows that sex is all Mommy and Daddy got left.
Oh, Sweet Boy, I am sorry, so very sorry for so many reasons, but I did not do this thing. When you finally rest your crying and over-stimulated self in my lap and tell me, “lonely” you must surely know I did not do this.
Please know this.

I couldn’t do this thing. Really. But it is done and me? I’m a sham. Oh, all Autism-is-not-the-End and whatever. Full of shit, that’s what I am. Still weak, still crying, still frozen. So I guess some things don’t change. Except that LRHF has changed. He's is no longer the less-independent, less able, younger Face-of-God baby he was when the whole dog and pony show started. He's in on the secret--he's smart, smart, smart. He’s pulling out all the stops--remembering the old ones, adding in new twists, and let me remind you that I am SO much older than I was back then. Older than I was yesterday. Slower. Left with only paper-thin patience, all the time, every time. Lots of yelling. Giving up or giving in. Mighty fine parenting. And I hate all of it, because I do know better, but I also know when I’m beaten. You know, there's "getting through" something and "being through" with something. I think I had the two confused or something. Or I never knew the difference.
Doesn’t matter, really.

And now there is no one to tell. No one has ideas, and no one has time and no one knows how truly useless I am when left to my own mothering devices. But my favorite, my personal favorite--that which stuns me every goddamned time and when will I ever learn, is that no one stays. They just...drive away.

Our beautiful and beloved Walter-Cat died so suddenly and without warning that I screamed when the vet called. Pillar of Strength, that’s me. Worse, tho, I can’t help but think if I’d paid better attention to him instead being on constant and necessary angry autie watch (it might involve broiling, remember), maybe that not-very-old-and-in-pretty-good-shape Brother Cat would be at the foot of the bed even as I write.

These ripples just keep on coming, never calming, even a little bit--that kid just has such a
great memory, everyone said that, you know. And now he’ll never forget when all the people came to play with him and teach him, and encourage him.

But the worst of the worst?
I wonder if he thinks I’ve given up on him. Really, I do. You know how I am. There’s hurt in his face when he looks at me now, and in that peaceless part of my mommy-heart, I wonder this horrible and untrue thing. I suppose I have given up on me, now that I think about it.
And it stops me cold. I’m…I can’t.
Now to be fair, you know our circumstances are a bit harder than most, and you know that I'm a bit less capable than most, and that our family dynamic is a bit more um...complicated than most, so truth be told, it’s probably just me being, well, me.
(Right? It’s not that big a deal, right? I’m making way too much of it, right?)

But what if it is too much? What if my 18th trip back to square one is the one that leaves me stuck? What can I give my beautiful son from there? What if I’ve given up? It does happen , you know. It happens to people who can only pretend to be strong and brave and capable. It happens when they can’t pretend anymore.
It happens when it ends.