Amidst the Cold of Winter

Into this weepy and bewildered bleakness, my middle son (that little fuzzy headed fellow) pokes his aforementioned fuzzy head to announce that "'Ho Ho Ho' means 'God is with us'."

Hmm..

Perhaps if I remember the latter when I hear the former, the light will come.

L.

Because I can't

Writing about this is thinking about this and thinking about this is grieving and guilting about this. And I can't just now, so this post is recycled from one I shared with some beloved friends. We are bound to each other by our stretchmarks and our secrets and while we don't see each other much at all, but we are always and absolutely shoulder to shoulder and shoulder for shoulder. Thank you,Dear Friends.

I know that Solstice will come and light will return, but for now I am dark.

I'll try to minimize the backstory as much as I can. D. (that little red headed fellow) will be
tested for autism spectrum disorder soon. I cannot begin to tell you
the depth of my fear and grief. And it's not even a
surprise. We've been dealing with spectrum stuff for the last two
years, and I've been adjusting to it, or so I thought, but THE test.
THE diagnosis. Knowing it and saying it are two very different
things. I have to tell you that he is my heart. He is precious and
singularly beautiful to me. When I hear "Silent Night" there's that bit about "Love's pure Light" and the clean beauty of the line and the melody are exquisitely my son to me.
But this is hard. Hard in so many ways.
It's hard to take everyone places. It's hard to explain to people.
It's hard to do everything, every-freaking-thing. There are things I
know and things I feel and those things are miles apart. I can't
begin to explain my guilt. You wonder what you did, you know? or
didn't do. yes, I know the answer, but a mother's heart isn't logical
like that. Did I miss something? Have I been in denial at his
expense? Am I just bad at this? I'm exhausted and scared and right
now, there's no one to talk to. And it is grief and guilt, and you
can't talk sense to either of those. I've cried more this week than I
can ever remember. And there's a lot of other stuff, Dh is working
evenings now, I've got some medical things, family things--it's just
very, very bad right now. My doctor is blown away by all the crap
factors. A few weeks back she offered to put me in the hospital for
respite. Seriously. And there's nothing to be done. No, I mean it.
I don't need to learn more about autism, I need to grieve. My
beautiful boy--love's pure light. The one most like me, the one I hold most closely to my heart. God help me. How will his life be? How hard will it be? How did this happen?
Who Did This? I wish I could be stronger--my children don't
need this crazy weeping woman dishing out chicken nuggets at them over the dutch doors, god
knows, but I am so weak about it. I know it could be worse. yes, I
know. I know, I know, I know. But I am still screaming.

Not exactly the shiniest holiday catch-up card, is it? Oh, and just this morning, I made my therapist cry. I didn't say mean stuff or anything, just um...gave her the holiday catch-up.
Yeah.

This Hole-y Time of Year

Hearken back, if you will, to my sweet double dutch doors and to my teeny wee bit of glee at finally, (oh please dear God) finally constructing a respectable safety barrier between that little red headed fellow and All Things Dangerous, Poisonous, Sharp and Tasty. Oh my innocence! My short-sidedness! Oh...damn. He's done it again. Over the Gate and Through the Kitchen to ATDP&T He Goes. Three times now I have removed, refilled, redrilled, re-leveled, and re-screwed this lock, which surely must be cast of spun sugar and certainly has no business whatsoever even resembling a lock by virtue of all that re-re-ing I've done just keeping the noun verbed. The door and surrounding areas are peppered (if you're using good-sized green peppers, mind you) with enough holes that people are compelled to ask about our gun policy. Three big ol' damn holes and counting. Dag, he's good. Picture, if you will, TLRHF mounting this door, gaining foothold (where there intentionally is none, nada, nyet), swinging his arm over the ledge (I was so freaking proud of that ledge, too...so sure of myself and my ledge) and flick-click-slap-click-flick--unlocked, opened, cleared, shut, re-locked. He re-locks it. That kills me. Now, I have previously been hesitant to grease the door, probably for all the same reasons you don't grease yours, but I am out of options. And wood putty. I'm out of wood putty.