Dental Drama

It had been over a year since the dentist started telling us that we really needed to get Josh's wisdom teeth out.  Getting there was a nightmare. My husband and I were in a protracted battle with our insurance who kept rejecting our requests for a surgical situation which would be appropriate for Josh.  I cannot tell you how angry that made me to know that I am employed and insured and my son has infected teeth rotting in his mouth but we can't get the help that we need to remedy this situation because our medical system is not built to accommodate people with special needs.  

Josh has always had drama with his teeth since he was a baby.  We brought him home from the foster family at three days old.  A few days later when we found a pediatrician for a first well-baby check, she noticed that he had what is called a "pre-natal tooth".  This meant that, for some reason, his little 5 pound body had decided that it should grow a tiny tooth in his teeny mouth before he was born.  I hadn't noticed because I was too busy being a sudden parent and too focused on keeping this new person alive.  Our doctor recommended a local pediatric dentist who also taught at Stanford and knew what he was doing even in special cases. She made a call and the dentist offered to make time that very day for us.

Dr. Adams was a calm, cool, chatty guy who let us know that the tooth had to come out because it had no root and could fall out and choke the baby.  Unfortunately, Josh was too small and young to numb his little mouth so, after getting our permission, the doctor took some forceps and ripped that little tooth right out of my child's perfect head resulting in unbearable, unstoppable screaming.  Thus, Josh's dental journey began traumatically and dramatically for him and for us.  

After we finally figured the insurance situation out we found an oral surgeon who did a fantastic job with his wisdom teeth.  Josh was not the happiest camper about going to the doctor's office but he was knocked out for the procedure itself so there was no drama there. Josh is a veteran at laying around in bed listening to music so he was happy to cooperate with the recovery.  Eating pudding and smoothies for the first few days was not bad either.

The problem came a few weeks later when we needed to take Josh to the dentist again for a follow up.  By then he was pretty wary of doctors' offices and pretty sick of people messing with his mouth.  Josh expressed firmly and loudly that he was against it. Screaming ensued. However, it had to be done so Alex laid on him and held his hands down.  The promise of a cookie when they got home empowered Josh to get over it pretty quickly and all was made well. . . until the next dental drama, I suppose.  

Work is Good

 

The other day Josh's dad had left a basket of clean clothes in Josh's room for him to fold and put away later.  When Josh woke up, he saw the basket and was very, very, very motivated to complete that chore.  He said, "Wanna put the clothes away" over and over again.  Unfortunately, the bus was coming in 20 minutes so we did not have time to do anything other than to get dressed, brush teeth and eat some quick breakfast before he headed to school.  Still, Josh is not Mr. "aware of the time" and he was extremely perseverating on getting this task done.  I had almost gotten him to the kitchen when he slipped past me back to his room where he dumped the basket of clothes onto his bed to start working on them. I had to fight him pretty hard to keep him from folding all his clothes and putting them away right then and there.  Ok, yes, I had to promise to include a cookie with his breakfast but I was finally able to redirect.

So how many of you parents out there have to fight your young adults to NOT do their chores?  

Josh doesn't always want to do chores but it's a big part of what he is learning to do in his life.  I'm extremely proud of how much Josh has grown in his ability to do work.  As a part of his post-secondary education, Josh has been volunteering at Molly Stones (a little boutique grocery store in town), Ace Hardware and the Veteran's Administration.  At those places, he puts items on shelves, he breaks down boxes, he wipes tables and he makes coffee for people.  I never tire of hearing about the new skills that he is gaining with the help of his dedicated team of vocational education aides and teachers.  

It's not an easy thing to figure out how to help a kid like Josh to learn a new task.  One teacher make a whole binder full of photos breaking down each part of the process of making coffee into really simple steps which Josh can understand and practice again and again.  Apparently, on Wednesday mornings, Josh walks around campus taking drink orders from various staff members, making those drinks and then delivering them.  He charges $2 for each beverage.  He carries around a clipboard where people attach their money. This is incredible to me.  

With help and repetition, Josh is learning how to work.  He is contributing to his various communities in his own Joshy sort of ways.  I am struck by what a tremendous gift it is to be able to work.  Without it, Josh is relegated to a life of just being entertained or being bored.  How easy it is to think that Josh is someone who just needs to be taken care of.  How tempting it is to allow Josh to live a life where he doesn't have to do anything to contribute.  But Josh is being given the gift of being able to work, albeit in simple, modified ways. 

Working, contributing and producing are part of what makes human life meaningful and happy.  The biblical picture of the Garden of Eden had work in it; good, productive work. Genesis 2:15 states that "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." It was only after the fall in the story of Genesis that things like inequality, greed, competition, poverty, futility, and forced labor came about. 

In our society, work is too often associated with our worth, our identity and the security of making money. Josh is free from those things.  Josh is never going to be a biomedical engineer or a clinical therapist but he is going to help keep places clean, running and organized.  He likes completing tasks. He brings caffeine into people's lives.  That's pretty good.  I'm so grateful for all of the people who have worked so hard to help to bring independent living skills and vocational education into my son's life.  

Thanksgiving Ham

Sometimes I just hate myself.  

Generally,  I don't have time to wade around in my insecurities.  I have three children, a dog and a congregation full of people to lead and care for.  I'm 55 years old and have had plenty of time for God to help me to get over myself.  I've come to accept that I am not a compilation of accomplishments, abilities and actions.  I'm a person who has been profoundly shaped and transformed by the grace that I have found through Jesus Christ.  

But then I have a day like today and I just have a jag of DESPISING my weaknesses, my peccadillos, the stupid things that I have a tendency to do.  Today is Thanksgiving and I feel like I had almost ruined it.  I have roasted at least 40-50 turkeys in my life. It's not a big deal.  I can totally do it; just pick a recipe and make it happen. 

The New York Times Cooking recipe said to roast the dry brined turkey for 30 minutes at the unusually high temperature of 450 degrees.  I'm guessing that the purpose of this is to do something like a sear to lock the juices in. Then I was instructed to turn the temperature to 350 degrees for the remainder of the time.  It really was an elegantly simple recipe, something that an experienced cook, such as myself, could do quite easily while managing teen aged sous chefs, a hungry special needs young adult who kept emerging from his room demanding food and various side dishes.  

The problem was that when I turned the temperature on my oven down to 350 degrees, I had forgotten to push START! What that meant was that, after having been cooked for 30 minutes, my turkey had been hanging out in a slowly cooling oven for the next two hours.  By the time I checked on it, an hour before we were supposed to eat, I opened the oven door to a very comfortably cool oven.  The turkey might as well have smiled and greeted me with a hello for how uncooked it was.

This catastrophe, combined with the realization that I had forgotten to pick up a splurged order of various breads and baked goods at a local bakery until it was too late, drove me to my room to lay on my bed with the door closed, taking deep breaths. I hate that I am a forgetter. . . and a non-detail oriented person.  

One time, I was in charge of travel to a family cruise in Florida and I scheduled our return flights to be for the day before the cruise returned to port.  In college, I would schedule things so that I needed to be in three places at the same time.  This lack of organization is the thing that I am most tempted to judge about myself. 

Granted, I've come far from those organizationally out of control young adult days.  The years of being a full time mom of an incredibly medically and developmentally complicated child certainly gave me organizational and detail management muscles that I never dreamed that I would have.  I am also a pastor of a church where, together with a multi-talented team of staff members, we function pretty well as an intergenerational, multiethnic community of around 300 people who need to turn a middle school into a place of worship every Sunday.

But every once in a while, I still make mistakes out of my lack of detail orientation and organization especially when I am tired.  No matter how much I've grown and matured, I can't seem to escape this part of my personality.

Two things helped me to pull out of the vortex of self-chastisement.  The first is my amazing husband who did not share my hypercritical attitude.  He just told me that he loved me and drove to KFC and to the bakery to see if he could help save our dinner.  (KFC was out of chicken and the bakery was all closed up.).  Just as he came home, I realized that I had also purchased a small ham to serve at a later gathering.  I threw that into the oven to heat and serve with our stuffing, potatoes and veggies.  Fortunately, Thanksgiving dinner this year was just my nuclear family and my mother so it wasn't a huge deal.  The ham was barely warmed and rather boring but it was fine. 

In fact, the second thing that served to give me perspective and stop being so disappointed with myself was how much Josh loved the ham.  My son LOVED the ham.  He asked for more over and over again.  In fact, at one point, while I got up to get more from the kitchen, he grabbed a slice right off of his grandmother's plate.  My mom reflexes are still pretty fast so I grabbed it right off his plate before he could eat it and made him wait for his own piece acquired in a proper manner.  

At the end of this day, I am choosing to think not about what I did wrong or what didn't go well but about the things that I am grateful for.  The six of us were able to sit together for a nice meal.  We enjoyed the food, especially Josh.  My 83 year old mother was able to spend quality time with us.  We played a little game which had us ask each other interesting questions.  We laughed together about funny stories from our pasts. 

As much as I am a foodie, I have to remember that the food is not the point.  The most important part of any feast is the spirit, the love, the people and what or who you are celebrating.  I hope that I am able to keep this on the forefront of my brain as we enter into another season of food and celebrating.  

21

Last month Josh turned 21 to very little fanfare.  We had a family dinner with my mother and my sister's family.  Josh and his dad shared a birthday cake as is our custom since their birthdays are 8 days apart in August.  

It's strange to think that if he were a typically developing young man, he might be attending college or be in the military.  He would probably be driving and figuring out his relationship with alcohol.  He would be able to vote, gamble and earn a pilot's license.  Heck, in this country, he could even get a concealed weapon license (!) or adopt a child (!)

But most of those things are out of reach for my son and probably will be for his whole life.  Instead, Josh is diligently working on his tasks at his job at the Veterans Administration building such as breaking down cardboard boxes, wiping down tables and filling up salt and pepper shakers.  He enjoys his routine of going to his class at our school districts post-secondary classroom and doing his daily neighborhood walk.  We are still working on chores such as emptying the dishwasher and putting his clean laundry away. 

Josh has a simple, small life but, I hope, a very good one.  He has people who know him and love him.  There are people who are helping him to learn new things.  He is a part of several communities in ways that are meaningful to him.  He enjoys different parts of God's creation such as water, the wind, music and many different types of foods.  He cries sometimes, yells sometimes, and laughs a lot. 

Josh is not like most 21 year olds but he is living a life full of his own kind of meaning and blessing.  I'm so proud of how far he has come and I am confident that he will continue to grow as he walks further into his young adulthood.  

Smelling Mama's Hair

One of my son's obsessions is smelling my hair.  For some reason or another, Josh LOVES to smell my hair.  His favorite thing is to pull my head to his nose and take a good long inhale and then tap it gently with his hands.  Then he usually laughs and smells again.  

The other day Josh was walking toward his school bus in the morning.  When he was about 5 feet from the bus he stopped, turned around and then came back to me, saying loudly enough for the bus driver to hear, "Wanna smell Mama's hair!"  What could I do?  It was easier to let the kid take quick sniff of my hair than to convince him to get on the bus without it.  Maybe it gave confidence for the day.  I don't know.

I wonder if his sense of smell is important to him because he's visually impaired.  That's what they say, right?  That if you have a sense that is underdeveloped or curtailed that you start to strengthen other senses.  I do know that when Josh was young, he had an extremely sensitive sense of hearing.  High pitched sounds like babies crying or certain sirens made him scream and cry and hold his ears. We also went through eras where we put him on a "sensory diet" with routines where I would "brush his arms and legs" and do certain kinds of squeezing on his arms and shoulders to help him to feel calm.  Yeah, I guess raising Josh has been quite an education in how the senses work differently for some people.  Sensory differences are, after all, a huge part of the autism experience. 

But I really have no idea why he specifically loves smelling hair so much but I do know that he has always been especially drawn to long, black hair worn in ponytails like I often wear my hear.  Years ago we were at a one of the girls' soccer games.  Hope was playing and I was managing both Josh and Anna on the sidelines.  Josh seemed happy in his folding chair with his headphones and ipod so I allowed myself to wander a little distance away to be with Anna.  A few minutes later I looked up to check on Josh and saw that he had gotten up and was walking toward another Asian mom with a long, black ponytail.  It was clear that hair sniffing was on his mind. In that moment, time slowed down like at the high point of an action movie.  I found myself yelling "nooooooooooo, Jossssssssssshhhhhhh".  I flew through the air almost sideways like in a John Woo movie (but without the guns) in a futile attempt to keep my son from grabbing this random mom's hair and smelling it.  I can't remember if the lady was understanding or not.  My memory ends there.  

Thinking about that memory makes me realize that Josh has been into hair for a long time.  And we've been trying to train Josh to ask before he grabs people's heads or hair.  I realize that having a young man say to you "Wanna smell your hair please" isn't exactly normal young adult social interaction but it's better to teach him to ask for permission / consent first, am I right? 

The other morning I was helping him to brush his teeth and wash his face.  Standing behind him I put my face up to his head and smelled his hair.  It smelled just the way I remember it smelling when he was a baby.  It smelled like sweetness and connection and intimacy and memory.  In the split second post sniff, I was filled with deep love.  It reminded me of that time when I felt like I heard God say, "Would you raise this child for me?"  And like the first time, I said, "Yes, it would be a privilege."  

 

Mother/Son Vacation

I said that we would just check it out, just take a quick look because by the time we had checked into the hotel and settled into our room, it was late afternoon and much too chilly to swim.  It was even colder than the weather report predicted and I had only brought thin sweatshirts for each of us.  But Josh kept saying, "Wanna go home" so I needed to put some more motivators on the table.  I wanted him to be ok with this quick little mother/son trip that I had brought him on.  So instead of going straight to the car to go get some dinner, we made a brief little side trip to just go look at the outdoor pool and hot tub area.

We rounded the corner and I used my key card to get us into the tiny fenced in area where the pool and little hot tub was. Josh took a good look around and, as he took it in, his visage completely changed, as if he was being greeted by a long lost friend.  The silly-sweet smile that oozed across his face said, "I know what this is! This is something I like!"

When I told him that he could dip a toe into the hot tub, he flung off his Crocs off and plopped his foot into the bathtub-like water.  I could tell by his body language that we weren't going to go straight to dinner.  

"Wanna go in?" It was half question and half declaration.  This kid wanted to go in the hot tub, cold windy weather be damned.  He walked right in with his shorts and underwear on.  I barely had time to take off his shirt and sweatshirt.  Josh spent the next hour enjoying the hot tub.  As he usually does when he's happy, he swing his arms around, sang little bits of songs, and exclaimed words which he made up like "Wash-weh!" and "stuck-tidit".

Well, this is why I decided to take three days and two nights away with Josh.  This week is Josh's spring break but not his sisters'.  Since I am on sabbatical, I somehow came up with the idea of having a mother/son getaway somewhere with a pool.  I chose Salinas because I have been wanting to visit the National Steinbeck Museum which is there and it would be easy to find a decently priced hotel where Josh could swim and enjoy water.

On our second day here we partook in the free breakfast and made our way to the Steinbeck Museum.  I had some amount of trepidation knowing that there was a wide spectrum of ways that this could turn out spanning from massive meltdown to going pretty ok.  After all these years, I know that taking Josh out to public places is always a risk but it's a risk that I am willing to take now and then.  Yes, there is always the chance that he will be walking along and suddenly decide to take a pee into a bush or suddenly get upset but I don't want Josh to live in his room all the time when he's not at school.  And I don't want to feel like I can never do anything interesting just because I have Josh in my life.  

The visit to the museum turned out to be surprisingly successful.  Josh spent a good part of the time by himself in a small, fenced in outdoor area within the museum with his headphones, Ipod and his Magnadoodle.  I would take in one or two exhibits and then walk back to check in on him.  He was fine the whole time, sometimes taking a few moments to walk in circles and feel the breeze on his face.  For the last 30 minutes, I made Josh walk through the exhibit room with me which he was less than thrilled about but was willing to do.  

After lunch Josh and I went down to the pool area where Josh elected to go into the big pool this time and I need to tell you that Josh was happy THE WHOLE TIME!  As parents, our children's joy catalyses our own joy.  It's not the only thing that we want for them but when our kids are filled with happiness and contentment, it touches a deep, central part of our hearts.  We want our kids to be able to enjoy the gifts that life (and we) give to them.  We want them to be happy.  

I find myself wondering if God feels this way about us.  I wonder if God, as a heavenly parent, wants me to enjoy my life, the world, and each moment as much as Josh does.  Does it give God joy when I savor some part of my day or a beautiful piece of writing or a perfect Korean meal? Does my smile make God smile? Is my laughter music to God's ears?  If so, I am going to try to let myself enjoy the things that I enjoy more.  I think of how freely and unselfconsciously Josh enjoys the pool and I will try to be like him.  I hope that my joy, and my grateful enjoyment of God's good gifts to me, is as pleasing to God as Josh's joy is to me.  

For nearly 4 hours I breathed in my son's sweet joy.  He swam around, jumped up and down, flapped his arms, floated on his back and stood quietly in the water with his eyes closed and face to the sky.  Every time I asked him if we should go back up to our hotel room he vehemently declared, "No!"  Finally I had to bribe him to come out with a piece of chocolate that I found in my purse.  We made our way upstairs to discover that Josh thought that the bathtub in our room was just the coolest.  He took a bath for another hour and half.  

Why Does This Woman Get to Influence My Son?

"I think it was from a song by Doja Cat."  Josh's respite care provider hesitatingly let me know that their weekly trip to Trader Joe's did not go as smoothly as it usually did this week.  Apparently, they had to wait outside for a while because Josh was repeatedly singing a phrase from a song which had a bad word in it, a word which he should not be singing indoors while grocery shopping on a busy Sunday afternoon.

"Oh no!" I said to her.  "Was it the F-word?"

I had heard Josh saying something that sounded like the F-word the other day.  You can't always tell because he pronounces certain words in odd ways.  For example, one of his favorite words to say is 'vacuum'.  Unfortunately, it usually sounds like 'f***-um'.  So it can be tricky, you know?

"No, it was worse.  It was the N-word."

My hands flew up to my face in distress. "What?! How does he know that word?" 

Ariana, Josh's caregiver, is a young twenty something who listens to a wide range of music.  Apparently she was familiar with the very song from which Josh was quoting or singing given the phrase which apparently was stuck in my sweet son's head.  

"Why is this person saying the N-word in a song?!" I demanded, more than annoyed that such influence had reached my innocent boy.  

"Mom." My 16 year old daughter had come out of her room to see what the commotion was all about.  "She's black.  She gets to use the word. And she's a rapper."

I could tell from her tone that my daughter kinda couldn't believe that I didn't know who Doja Cat was.  (And I know who she is . . . I just didn't know that she was black or a rapper or, okay, really anything about her but I have heard that name before.)

But Hope was sympathetic to our conundrum.  How do we help a kid like Josh to understand that there are things that you can't say out loud, even if you are happy, even if you are singing, and even if someone else says it, even if it's stuck in your head?

The thing is, Josh has no idea what a "bad word" is.  He doesn't swear or curse or use profane words or images to express that he's angry or cool or sexy.  He does not use words or sarcasm or gossip to hurt people. He does not know how to objectify his own or other people's bodies.  He has no idea that the simple use of certain words said by certain people at certain times reminds the hearers about how language was one of the tools which were used to horrifically oppress an entire group of people in the history of this country and has echos even now.

He just picks up sounds and phrases and repeats them because they sound good to him.  He's just as likely to repeat a phrase from Elmo or the Wiggles as Doja Cat or Kanye/Ye.

As sad as this is, today this reality brings me comfort because Josh's intellectual disability protects him from a having his heart be influenced by the profanity and the negative influence of certain words and phrases in the world around him.  He is not going to learn to think about precious things like sex, our bodies, God, our promises flippantly.  He doesn't know how to say one thing but mean or do another.  He doesn't use words as a weapon.  In this way, Josh is freer than some of the other teens that I know and love.

Now if I can only figure out how to keep him from using the N-word at Trader Joes.  

Tethered

 

I've realized that there are some ways in which the isolation which came with the pandemic did not feel new to me because for the past 18 years we've been responsible for an eternal toddler who must be watched at all times else he get into all manner of trouble.  This has not meant that we couldn't go out or see people or travel but it has meant that we do much less of these things than many of my friends and neighbors. My husband and I have been tethered by Josh's needs, sensitivities and limitations.  

This photo is from a recent day when we left him alone in the bathroom for just a little too long.  Someone had started him in the tub without putting everything away so Josh poured an extra large jug of Head and Shoulders into the tub and then pushed the jacuzzi jet button.  I walked in to find most of the bathroom filled with a hip high layer of bubbles.  

My first thought was "Oh my God.  We can never leave him alone ever.  I have to give up everything I ever wanted to do outside of this house.  I will never have freedom and independence ever again."  

Woah.  

Where did that come from?  After all, I have a full time job and an office that I can go to even during Covid.  I have the partnership of a wonderful and capable spouse who is currently taking the lead role with Josh.  I now even have two in-house teen aged babysitters who say that they will only charge us "half price" from their usual rates when they babysit other people's kids (actually, they don't really charge us but often insist that we Doordash them something).  

I think that it's triggering for me when we have an incident like this because it exposes my fear; fear that Josh will never grow in independence, fear that something really bad will happen to Josh because we weren't watching him well enough, fear that we will not have a good future because of who Josh is.  

It really is more about the fear of the future because the present is pretty ok.  

What is the antidote for this kind of triggered fear? 

First of all, breathing.  Sit.  Breathe.  Wait.  Keep breathing.  Feel the fear.  Breathe again.  Wait some more.

Secondly, and this is way later after your actual body has calmed down, ask.  Ask yourself what is going on. Ask God to help you.  Ask your body, how it's doing.  I think that slowed down asking is really good.

Finally, wait for grace.  Seriously, grace usually comes when we ask and when we're open.  That grace might be through peace or perspective or a memory or humor.  The grace might come much, much later and it might be really tiny but my life experience tells me that grace does come.  And when you see it or sense it, take it in.  You need it.  You were made for it.  

I did this just now and the new perspective that I received was that I am tethered to Josh but through the lens of grace, I believe that it is a good thing.  Messed up bathrooms can be cleaned but the love and transformation that comes from my relationship with my son will be forever.  

Our Neighborhood Walk

Almost every day since the the pandemic started a year ago, we have been managing being homebound by taking a walk around the neighborhood with Josh and our dog.  On most days it's my husband, the dog and Josh.  Sometimes the girls and I go along.  Today, my sister's whole family and my mother came along, all of us masked and trying to walk with some amount of distance from one another.  

Our neighborhood is generally quite nice with small to mid-sized homes, decently attended yards and old trees overhead.  People express their friendliness by putting out boxes with extra fruit such as lemons or oranges for anyone to take.  We pass three of those "Little Free Libraries" during the course of our walk.  People are friendly in a "look at you and smile" kind of way not a "randomly start to talk to someone you don't know" kind of way.  No one seems to be weirded out by Josh.  

All in all the walk is about 1.1 miles or 6000 steps and takes between 20-30 minutes depending on how slowly Josh is walking.  Josh takes his time, clapping as he goes.  Sometimes he stops to enjoy the sun on his face or to look at a leaf and possibly taste it.  He knows the way but he has to be watched lest he get stalled or decide to eat some inappropriate item.  

It's always the same walk, down the same streets, on the same sidewalks, making turns at the same places. My husband and Josh take great comfort in the sameness of the walk.  To me, for a while, it felt boring and a little mind-numbing.  Why can't we ever explore other parts of the neighborhood?  Must we always go the exact same way?

A therapist friend of mine recently told me that humans find great comfort in routine, especially during times of stress.  This must be true about our walk especially to the more routine-loving members of our family.  Josh is very committed to the exact pattern of our walk.  If I try to walk on the side walk on the other side of the street from what he is used to or to cross the street in a slightly different way, he resists heartily.  He feels very strongly that there is a way to do this walk and it's a very good way . . . not to be messed with.

One time, a mom was coming down the sidewalk toward us herding twin preschoolers each with their own scooters plus she had an infant in a carrier on her front.  I could see even as she was further away that she was going to have a hard time moving to the other side of the street to avoid us.  I tried to get Josh to go around them on the street and he wasn't having it.  The more I insisted, the more Josh got upset and started screaming and hitting himself on the head.  I apologized profusely as we had to pass each other, uncomfortably close given the county health guidelines of remaining 6 feet apart from people who are not in your household.  She didn't say anything back to me, perhaps because her mask was in her hand, but her eyes told me that she understood and wasn't judging us.  

Since that time, we got help from Josh's Orientation and Mobility (O & M) instructor at school to work on having Josh practice going around a parked car in the street every now and then to practice "giving way" on the side walk.  At first Josh did it for goldfish crackers, then just for verbal praise.  Now he can do it whenever we ask him to.  Being flexible with his routine is not his favorite thing but he's gained some amount of elasticity over time.  

I realized today how blessed we are to have our little walk.  Having done it hundreds of times now, it feels like a comforting thing, a chance to notice simple pleasures like fresh air, trees, different flowers that bloom around the homes of our neighbors.  We know which house is being sold and which one is doing some remodeling.  We wonder where the little white dog has gone since we haven't seen him in his backyard for a while.  This routine has made our neighborhood more "ours" and has given Josh a safe way to engage with it.  

Adventures in COVID Testing

Headphones? Check.

Power Bars? Check.

Chocolates? Check.

I thought I was all set to take Josh to get a COVID test at a local community center.  We are planning to go to a cabin in the mountains over Thanksgiving with my sister's family and my mother so we all decided that we were going to test beforehand.  I talked to it about it the whole time we were driving there, promising him his beloved cheese quesadilla at Taco Bell afterwards.  The strategy was lots of communication, lots of bribing which usually works pretty well. He was in a very good mood and was echoing me eagerly.  

"After the nose test we're getting a quesadilla."

"After the nose test we're getting a quesadilla!"

I should have know that things were going to go south when we stood in line behind a set of nervous preschoolers.  They both started to cry as they moved toward the front of the line and saw the clinical set up inside the community center.  Children crying is kryptonite to my son so he started making anxious noises and putting his fingers in his ears.  

When we finally got up to the table where we were asked to show the QR code for our registration, I was greeted by two very tall, confident Asian men in their early 20s.  Through their PPE I could see that they both had haircuts and tattoos that communicated a high degree of hipness.  

I told them about Josh's autism and intellectual disability and they confidently had Josh sit down and came at his nose with a long swab.  Things went bad pretty quickly.  Josh was not at all interested in having something go up his nose and started screaming, "No! NO! NOOOOOO!" He started to flail his arms and kick with his feet.  The chair went flying.

The cool Asian men in PPE tried to hold him down enough to get 10 swirls of the swab in each nostril but it just got worse.  Josh screamed like he was being tortured.  For a second I thought about the faces of the people in line outside and wondered what they thought was going on and what might be in store for them when it was their turn to get tested.  It made me want to laugh except that I also wanted to cry.  

It was all going to hell in a hand basket when a short, older white woman came over and took charge, ordering the men to stop trying to hold him down.  She took a couple of deep breaths and we all followed suit.  We sat there breathing deeply together while everyone in a large auditorium were all probably very aware of us.  

Then the woman told Josh in a very calm but authoritative voice, "Josh, we need to put this in your nose.  I'm going to let you do it with me and we're going to count to ten."  She held out the swab and let Josh put his fingers around it while she also held onto it.  Then together, they stuck it up his nose and swirled it around.  He didn't like it but he did it.  And when she told him that we were done and that he had done a good job, he said, "Want chocolate."  I quickly gave him a piece of the leftover Halloween candy that I had in my purse.  The lady gave him the rest of the candy while I got my nose swabs.  Just as I was finishing, I saw that Josh was holding her hand and asking her for a quesadilla.  

As we drove from the community center to Taco Bell, I could literally feel the tension swirling around my body like someone had taken all of the stress from the past 7 months and and squished it into a tight bolus which I had swallowed.  Adrenaline pulsed down my arm like little arrows.  It's been a while since Josh has had a full scale melt down like that but, wow, he can still do 'em pretty impressively.

When we got back to the parking lot outside of his school,  I turned around to see my beloved son contentedly eating his prize from Taco Bell like the generally calm, happy person that he usually is. I love this kid so much it hurts.  I took a deep breath and said, "Ok Josh, let's go back to school."  He was quiet for a minute and then he said to me, "But first chocolate."  

Rain Man

 

My husband Alex is very committed to our daughters' movie education.  A veteran movie and TV watcher, Alex loves sharing the excellent films of his childhood, youth and young adulthood with them whenever they are willing.  At 13 and 14 they know more about World War II movies, sports themed movies and movies of the early 80s than most other kids their age.  We are aware that time may be running out on getting them to watch movies with us as they have just started high school and are on the brink of almost always choosing time with friends over time with parents.

Right before the school year started this year we realized that the girls had never seen Rain Man.  Given the fact that it's about a sibling relationship with a brother with autism, we skipped the usual back and forth about what people wanted to watch and just decided that we just had to watch this.  Hope and Anna had never heard of this movie and had no idea what it was about.  

Anna was hesitant at first saying, "It's kinda long, Dad. Can we watch something else?"  

We insisted, saying, "Just trust us. You'll like it."

They did like it.  We laughed.  We cried.  We called out unrealistic and disturbing things (like Tom Cruise's girlfriend kissing Raymond in the elevator).  Mostly, we resonated.  Here are the top four points from our post movie-watching conversation:

1)  Dustin Hoffman deserved his Oscar.  We thought he did a great job embodying a person with autism.  When his character had meltdowns or dealt with stress through saying things over and over again it felt very real to the four of us who have not only lived with Josh for a long time but have also observed his peers.

2)  Not all people with autism have savant syndrome.  Why does it seem like everything that in everything that Hollywood pumps out people with autism also have savant syndrome?  For example, we are fans of the Good Doctor, where the main character has both autism and savant syndrome as well.  He can figure out all sorts of medical miracles with his superhuman capability of picturing the details of the human body in his mind.  If Josh had savant syndrome, what kind would we want for him?  Musical ?  Mathematical?  Is the ability to draw hairdryers and fans on the magnadoodle for hours at a time a superpower?  We once had a music therapist who was sure that Josh was a musical savant with perfect pitch.  About a $1000 in music therapy lessons later, we realized that he didn't.  

3)  People with autism are capable of expressing a wide range of positive human experiences and emotions.  We loved how Raymond had moments of humor, affection and joy.  We really resonated with the movie makers' choice to have Raymond be a well-rounded person who had the whole human gamut of emotions and not just an amalgam of stereotypes of what people think that people with autism are like.  Our Josh is a fount of happiness, peace, confidence and curiosity.  We appreciated that as Charlie got to know his brother as a multi-dimensional person so do we.   

4) In this story, institutionalization was the answer.  Yes, this film was made in 1988 but we were curious about how people's perspective about the need to house people with autism and other disabilities in institutions have changed.  In this particular story, the best thing for Raymond ended up to be living in the institution which he had already lived in for decades. It didn't hurt that Charlie and Raymond's father had tons of money and could afford to house Charlie in a very nice institution.  Also, Charlie was clearly not in a place to be able to suddenly and responsibly live with Raymond.  Still, we wish that there were more examples in the media where families are shown to be living and flourishing with people with autism.

For those of you who know real people with autism, what felt real or interesting about this movie?  What felt off or wrong?  What do you think that this film says about people with autism? 

Family Meeting

Part of our survival strategy during COVID is to have family meetings.  During these times we try to resolve conflicts, agree upon expectations about chores, clarify family policies about online behavior etc.  Now, remember that my husband and I as well as our two 9th grade girls are all raging extroverts and these meetings are places where strong opinions and emotions are being unfurled so you really have to bring your A-game.  Your mind has to be sharp and your timing has to be ON or else you might not get any airspace or you might lose precious time in an endless bunny trail of random disagreements.  I've led a lot of meetings in my life and our family meetings are pretty much the zenith of leadership challenge.  If you lose concentration for a split second, you are bound to lose control and someone will end up leaving the room or crying.  

We were having one of those highly tension filled meetings in our living room when Josh sauntered out of his room and plopped down next to his sister.  We all stopped for a second because Josh does not usually join in on these meetings.  He had his headphones on, his ipad in hand and seemed pretty happy so we just continued on with our meeting agenda. 

At one point, the emotional tension was really starting to build.  I can't remember what the topic was but there was considerable disagreement about it.  Things that were being said by one person were taken as seriously offensive to another family member.  I wondered for a second if this was going to be one of those meetings that we have to halt and come back to later.  

But just at the right moment, Josh entered the conversation by echoing something that was said a few minutes earlier in the conversation.  

"That's totally inappropriate!"

The rest of us stopped, looked at each other and couldn't help but to laugh.  

"That's totally inappropriate!"  

"Joshie, is it totally inappropriate?" I asked my sweet boy.

"Yes." He said, very calmly, focused on this ipad.  

That little moment of levity was all we needed.  We were able to finish our meeting and iron out our differences with much more calmness.  Josh had been just the special guest consultant that we needed to survive another meeting with teen girls who are trying their best to survive a pandemic (and their frazzled parents).  

(This is not from a family meeting but another time where we were just hanging out together.)

Happy as a Clam

 

When we first arrived at our friends' beach house I was already a mess.  I was afraid that our unruly, chaotic mop of a dog would pee in their house.  I kept thinking about all of the things which I had forgotten to pack.  It was hot.  I was already tired.  Of course, the biggest worry, as always, was about how Josh would do.  This was a place where we had never stayed before and Josh is always stressed by new places.  

We always let Josh stay in the car as long as possible while the rest of us unpack the car and get situated in any new place.  Alex brought all of Josh's accoutrements into the room which he would get to stay in all by himself: his stereo, his Ipad, his magnadoodle toy.  When there was nothing left to unpack I went out to the van to coax Josh to come in.  I can't remember if I had to bribe him with a snack . . . probably yes.  

I feel bad saying this but, with our family, going on any trip is a big fat risk.  We're definitely had our share of family trips that have spectacularly NOT gone well.  For the past twelve years, we have had the most success vacationing at our dear friends' lake cabin in the mountains.  Josh gets to stay in the basement family room where it's quiet and he gets his own space.  He loves it and he knows what to expect.  If he hears us mentioning "the lake cabin" Josh will start saying "wanna go to the lake cabin" over and over again.  But this year our friends are in the midst of a remodeling project so it wasn't an option.  Also, we happen to be in the middle of a pandemic this summer so we assumed that we would just stay put.  Just when being in our house was going to drive us fully bonkers, some other friends reached out asking if we might want to stay at their beach place about an hour away.  Uh, yeah!

Today is our third day here and we finally felt ready to take the risk to take Josh down the mini-hike down to the beach.  The last time we took Josh to the beach, he didn't like it and he wanted to go home right away, which was a bummer for the rest of us.  But the beauty of this place was just so ridiculous that we had to try again.  Hope went down earlier than the rest of us and she texted me, "MOM! THERE ARE DOLPHINS!"  I looked out of the main bedroom's window and, sure enough, I could see a pod of dolphins frolicking in the water below not far from the shore.  

That was it.  I summoned the energy to pack up all of our beach stuff and drag Josh down the path and three sets of very steep steps down to the beach.  He was scared but he held tight to the guard rail and my t-shirt and carefully headed down.  

It was pretty much love at first sight.  Josh plopped himself down in the wet sand and, for the next two hours, delighted in the sensory input of the cool waves hitting his body.  He was like a little brown lighthouse of joy, waving his arms in the air, laughing loudly and saying some of his favorite words;  "feelings!", "abortion!", "cocaine!", "train!".  Several people walked by and gave us a smile.  

Alex and I took turns closely supervising him in the water while admiring how well the girls had taken to boogie boarding.  We each got some time to ourselves under the umbrella to read as well.  

To top it all off, I quickly found that if I dug into the wet sand a little bit with my feet, it was not too hard to find clams!  Be still my immigrant heart!  Not only was this day going so well but was I going to have FREE seafood to cook for dinner as well?  This is crazy!  

Ok.  Not everything in a given day has to be perfect in order for a day to be wonderful.  It turned out that there is a quarantine on shellfish in this area because of an abundance of a certain marine bio-toxin so we couldn't eat the clams.  Also, one of my supposedly independent teens elected to not apply sunscreen prior to swimming in the ocean for hours so some amount of wailing about crispy skin ensued.  But we all agreed that the day had been very good and we were filled with gladness and gratitude.  

Abortion, Cocaine and Such

I think I might have solved a long standing mystery in our household.  As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Josh has a habit of repeatedly speaking out a word or phrase which he takes a liking to.  We are guessing that he doesn't speak the word for what it means to most of us but he likes how it sounds.  Sometimes they're nonsense words that he's made up like "recordian".  Oh how he loves to say that.  I'll walk into his room and he'll be saying, "recordian" and just savoring the sound of it with a sweet smile it like he's had some fine wine or gourmet chocolate or something.

One of his favorite real words is "abortion".  He seriously says it all the time. A new word which Josh is fond of is "cocaine".  It's both annoying and disturbing to have him say these words over and over and over again.  They're not lovely words.  I don't like that he says them and I don't know where he got them.

Starting about a year ago, he'll say a word or phrase aloud and then he will keep saying it until we say it back to him.  Maybe it's his autistic way of being relational or interactive but it sure doesn't feel very relational from the neuro-typical side. And if we don't say it back to him, he'll keep saying it with more volume and intensity until one of us breaks down and finally says the word just to get him to shut up, especially if we're in a car together.

"Abortion? Abortion?  ABORTION!"

"Yeah, abortion, Josh"

"Hey, I thought we weren't going to say it back to him!"

"Yeah, we need to break him of this pattern.  It's so annoying!"

"I just can't stand it anymore.  I just need him to stop."

"Yeah, I know."

(3 minutes pass)

"Cocaine?"

You get the picture.  Anyways, today I walked into his room where he was listening to the radio and caught the tail end of someone sharing a testimony on the Christian radio station.  The person was sharing about how he used to be a major cocaine user until Jesus came into his life and now he's sober.  Oh. My. Goodness.  That's it.  Josh has been picking up these words from CHRISTIAN FREAKING RADIO!  I bet that's where he got the word "abortion" as well!  Ok now.  How can I fix is little CD player to not be able to play Christian radio?  And no rap stations either.  That might be where he's getting all his swear words.

Five Blessings and a Bummer During Quarantine

Like most parents, Alex and I are struggling to create some sort of routine for our kids during this time of "sheltering in place" during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.  I think that all of us are disoriented and stressed.  But do you know who's not disoriented and stressed?  My 17 year old son, Joshua.  He has no idea why we stopped going to school but he seems to be quite cool with it.  School ended a week ago and our household is just barely starting to achieve some semblance of a new structure.

Mostly, Josh gets to hang out in his room listening to music and drawing which he's happy to do.  He takes long baths and goes for at least one walk around the neighborhood every day.  Sometimes, we drag him around to the grocery store or to get pet food.  As long as he has some snacks, he's very chill about running errands.

Today, I was struck again about what a blessing Joshua is.  Here are five things that I have enjoyed about Josh and one thing that I didn't enjoy:

1) Josh has become a good walking buddy.  When he arrives at a street corner, his years of orientation and mobility training kicks in. Josh says quietly to himself, "Look left, look right.  Safe to cross." Then he takes my arm and crosses the street.  It's the sweetest thing ever!

2)  Josh wakes up happy and hungry.  Whereas my other teens have a proclivity to sleep till 11am or noon, Josh wakes up between 7-7:30 am everyday.  I hear him rummaging around in the kitchen and fear of him pouring my sugar canister all over the floor wakes me up in a jiffy.  Once up I decide to make myself a cup of coffee and then I am rewarded with a quiet couple of hours.  Josh has a couple of pieces of toast and some frozen smoothie cubes then he retires to his own room.

3)   Josh is unbelievably happy in the bathtub.  He loves the sensory input of water and our babysitter recently bought him this bath toy which he finds to be a never ending delight.  ("It's like a shower head!!") I am not kidding, Josh can take a three hour bath and make happy noises the whole time.

4)  Josh comprehends that if he wants to use my phone for 5 minutes to watch a YouTube video he has to work for it. 5 minutes with my phone equals at least three chores.  He's actually pretty good at unloading our dishwasher, although if left unsupervised, he can leave all the glasses upside down on the edge of the sink.  Still, I find it helpful to have him contribute in this way and he never complains.  Other chores include taking out the trash and recycling, watering the plants in the front or back yard, brushing his teeth (not a chore but still works in the same way) or putting away clean clothes.

5)  Josh still loves to sniff Mama's hair.  Actually, he sniffs Hope's hair as well.  I think he really has a thing for long black hair.  Maybe blond hair doesn't smell as nice?  Alex has no hair on his head so he doesn't get to participate in this.  One time Hope had a friend over who had the most beautiful long black hair.  The girls were watching a movie when out of the corner of my eye I saw Josh headed over to sniff her hair.  It was like everything went into slow motion, Josh going in for a sniff, me trying to head it off saying, "Nooooooooooooooooo".  Disaster was averted but the friend seemed a little confused.  Anyways, sniffing people's hair is not the most prosocial behavior but it's one of the only ways that Josh initiates connection and affection.  And it makes him happy, which makes me happy.

The Bummer -- Yesterday Josh and I went for a walk to the "Little Free Library" down the street.  For those of you who have not seen these, they are little shelves or cupboards that people put up on their front yards where people can leave a book or take a book.  It tends to be a low key place where people sometimes congregate.  Three people from the same household were there already and as we approached, smiling Josh said in a loud and delighted voice, "F*cker!" Dude, I have no idea where he got that! Seriously, I don't think that I've heard that word in my house ever. (Other not nice words but not that particular one.)  I do know that Josh will pick up a word that he hears and rolls it around in his mind and mouth.  Last month his favorite word, unfortunately, was "abortion".  Oh how he loved to say that word.  Sometimes he'll keep saying it until we say it back to him.  It's the only way to get him to stop.  Well, all I know is that I haven't had a good mortification like that in a while.

Morning Clapping

I have a seventeen year old son who wakes up happy on most mornings.  How's THAT for counting your blessings?  This is not to say that he's happy all the time.  When he's unhappy, you'll know it because he feels free to cry, yell and throw things.  But the kid loves to be alive most mornings.

For example, today is Saturday and, as we did not have anything going on in the morning, I slept in past our usual early morning family wake up time.  The first thing that I hear is the sound of jubilant clapping.  Joshua is drawing some of his favorite things on his magnadoodle toy (such as hairdryers and showerheads), putting the magnetic pen down and then clapping.  He can do this for hours.

Eventually he comes out to the kitchen and starts rummaging around for something to eat.  Without supervision his greatest interest, of course, is to find cookies.  Josh's sisters have been on a baking kick for quite a while now so he knows that they often hide containers full of baked goodies in various places in the kitchen, ostensibly to keep him from finding and eating them.  But, though he may have intellectual disability, he's not stupid so he can usually find any hidden sweets or baked goods.  Given further unsupervised time, he will eat the whole thing, leaving prodigious amounts of crumbs on the floor for our dog to clean up.

Alex even put a "baby proofing" clip on one cabinet in an attempt to keep Josh from accessing it but he figured out how to work it pretty quickly.  Finally, we ended up having to buy a plastic "lock box" to keep chips and granola bars in so that we could have some secure location in the kitchen.  Josh has not figured out how to open this yet but the problem is that the rest of us often forget to lock it up so Josh knows to check it first when he's hankering for a chocolate chip breakfast bar.

Hearing Josh in the kitchen is what finally got me out of bed.  I offered to make him some toast and he grinned broadly.

"Want butter on it," he said.

Josh also really enjoys what we call "frozen yogurt".  This is the leftovers of homemade fruit smoothies frozen into ice cube trays.  He won't eat it in liquid form but once frozen, he loves it.  He treats each cube like a little delectable piece of luxury, nibbling first on the edges then taking slightly larger bites, smiling as he does.

The house is really quiet this morning as Josh's sisters are away on a youth retreat.  I am listening to my son making happy noises while eating his breakfast.  Every once in a while, he will take a break from his voracious eating and express his joy through a few seconds of vigorous clapping.  I know that he might just be seeking sensory input.  But sometimes I imagine that Josh is giving thanks to God in his own way for his life.  And in my mind, I see God smiling back, very pleased at His son.

Two Words: Retainer and Toilet

"Mommmmmm.  Where's my . . ."  I hear it a thousand times a day.  It's uttered at the beginning, middle, and sometimes near the end of searches for lost items.  Wallets, homework, permission slips, hairbrushes, special rocks which I never knew that they had, they all have a way of hiding themselves in the corners and crevices of our house.  Tonight, it was her retainer.  Somehow, it was assumed that I would know where it was.  I did not.

"Oh . . . my . . . gosh.  Mommmmmmm!  Josh threw it into the toilet!!"

Josh sat at the dining table eating his toast with neither guilt nor amusement.

"Josh, did you throw your sister's retainer in the toilet?"

"Yes"

"What do you need to say?"

"Thank you."

"No Josh.  Sorry."

"Sorry."

What do you think?  Is he innocent?  Does he know what he is doing or no?  

In the face of something that Josh has done wrong, it is never clear whether he is aware of his transgression or not.  Usually, I am too preoccupied by my own (often triggered, distracting, unhelpful) response to really be able to assess whether Josh is experiencing remorse, guilt, or defensiveness.  What I am wondering these days is this:  Does Josh understand that he does things that are wrong?  Does he know that he is a sinner? Or is he "an innocent"?  In biblical language, does he not have the "knowledge of good and evil"?  

As a parent, I am aware that part of how children grow in their conscience is that parent teach them and reinforce that reality by giving them consequences for their actions.  But how does one punish a kid who responds like this?  I can't remember now if I gave him a consequence in this situation.  We were too busy freaking out and trying to figure out if we could save the retainer.  

Miraculously, my daughter was frustrated but not angry.

"Why aren't you angry, Hope?"

"I don't know if Josh knows what he's doing or not.  Maybe he does.  I don't know."  She laid on my bed writhing with tension, amusement, aggravation and a drop of love.

A Fable about a Table

**Friends, this post is longer than my average post.  Please give yourself a few extra minutes to read.  To help you, I've put in more than the average number of photos.  Thanks for engaging with my life and my thoughts!  


My husband tells me that his parents bought this table as a part of a big home redecorating project in the 70's.  That would explain how ugly the table was.  The legs to this table always made me think of furniture that might be in King Arthur's court; heavy, ornate and . . . medieval.  But it was also sturdy and free so we've had it in our dining room ever since Alex's dad passed away.  It is the only dining table that my kids had ever known.

Despite all of the effort that we put into rearranging so that they could have desks in their rooms, my girls do their homework almost exclusively on the dining table.  As soon as I come into the house I plop my computer bag and my purse onto a chair at the table.  Groceries are sorted at this table.  Almost all of our meals have been eaten at this table.  Many guests have been hosted.  Conflicts have been resolved.  Serious conversations have been had.  Many prayers have been prayed at this table.  Our dining table is, in many ways, the heart or the hearth of our family home.

Alex has always taken care of this table as a precious artifact from his family history.  When we have to move the table, it must be done with two people so that it can be lifted not dragged.  Expanding the table by adding additional leaves to it must be done with great care and attention lest it be jostled too much and things get out of joint.  I never knew if this was because the table was so important to him or because he's just a really meticulous dude.  It might be both.

For a long time we had these custom made cushiony cover thingies on the table at all times.  I don't know why.  They came with the table so we kept them on.  And because they were ugly, we always had a table cloth on the table.  And because we had kids, the table cloth was always getting disgustingly gross so we washed the tablecloths almost every day.

Two years ago I asked myself why we were putting so much effort into protecting a table that was almost 50 years old and far from my ideal table.  I made a big change to our lifestyle and decided that we would let our table be naked, come what may.

Well, what came was that one day, while his mom was watering plants in the backyard, Josh took a ball point pen and carved a significant number of shower heads, hairdryers and fans into the table top where he sat to have an after school snack.   Here are some pictures of his "designs".

My first thought was that my husband was going to have a cow.  My second thought was that the table top was already pretty old and worn.  I posted some of these pictures on Facebook and a friend suggested that I simply refinish it.  Another friend even suggested a specific place nearby who might do a great job.  But given the busyness of my life and my tremendous hostility to taking on household projects, I knew that this would never happen.  I just internally prepared myself to live the rest of my life with a dining table with some artwork on it.  Maybe it would just be a conversation piece.  Or we just never let any non-family member sit where Josh usually sits.  I contemplated returning to table cloths.

Alex did have a cow, but just a little one.  He had a calf.  He was upset but quickly submitted to the chaotic power of Josh.  We have an autistic child.  Whaddya gonna do?  Fight to have a semblance of order in our lives?  I think not.

I'm not sure how it happened but somehow my husband and a good friend of his were chatting about what happened to the table.  The friend happened to be a designer and inventor who knew how to work with wood.  And he happened to have a power sander.  I kept coming home from work to see them working on the table with great gusto.  I think they were actually having fun.  Alex was really enjoying learning a new skill, something that he always wanted to know how to do but never had the time or bandwidth.

This is a picture of them and the table before the final varnish.  It was an amazing transformation and resurrection.  I couldn't believe it.  It was a gorgeous color of reddish brown; shiny, gleaming, almost radiating a loving warmth to our home.

Here is a pic of the final work.  Beautiful, isn't it?

How I wish the story ended there but, alas, it does not because two nights ago, the girls had left a permanent marker on the other end of the table from where Josh sits.  As I was preparing his pills, in a split second Josh took the black permanent marker and did this.

I turned around to see him holding the marker in his hand.

"Josh, what are you doing?!!!"  I yelled.

"Josh, what are you doing?"  he replied, calmly, eating a tomato.  If he sensed my emotion, he gave no indication.  It occurred to me that even our dog knows when he is in trouble.  Luther knows when to avert his eyes and get out of the way when I find that he's ripped up a stuffed animal or has peed on the carpet.  But my son acted like it was no big deal, like he was the one who knew some peaceful, deep wisdom that I could not yet fathom.  I just stood in the kitchen with my mouth open, silent, fuming and flummoxed.  Our beautiful, refinished table, was ruined once again.  After a few minutes of silence Josh said to me, "Want more toast".  Sigh.

Years ago, a wise mentor once taught us that we have to remember that the many things that we work to build in our lives are like sandcastles.  We work hard to build something and we want them to be beautiful, excellent, impactful, and lasting.  But in the end, like sand castles, the things we build are ultimately washed away.  Organizations, churches, ministries, institutions, programs, careers, wonderful as they may be, they all have their ends, often sooner than we expect.  Even expensive dining tables don't last forever.  None of the things in my house will last forever.  Even my house will not last forever.  From a Christian perspective, the only things that lasts forever are people and God (and maybe animals, I'm not sure about that one yet).

A few weeks ago while we were on vacation at the beach, we ran into a pair of brothers who were hard at work on a super-duper sand castle.  They had roped off a section of the beach and were building a replica of an actual European castle that they had researched.  Both were engineers who grew up at the beach making sand creations in their childhood. They spent quality  time together once a year by spending a whole day making something beautiful out of sand.  This project took them over 13 hours.  They arrived with their many tools and buckets before dawn and we helped them pack everything up using our flashlights on our phones.  As we chatted at the end of the day, I asked them why they did this and wasn't it a bummer that their creation would be washed away by the next morning?  Exhausted but happy, they said that it's all part of the process.  They did not expect it to last forever.  That was not the point.  Their wives let them take a whole Saturday away from their families not to build the sandcastle but to invest in their relationship as brothers.

I've been thinking about this sandcastle ever since that day.  The beautiful, valuable things in our lives are but a reflection of that which is ultimately lasting beauty.  We will enjoy our lives, our relationships and even our things better if we accept that and just give ourselves to the process of life in this temporal world.