The Dark Days...

There's never been a thing in my life I’ve dedicated myself to more than being a mom. I wanted to be a mom.  I prayed to be a mom.  I planned to be a mom.  And I waited until I thought the time was just right for me to fully focus my time and energy into being a mom.  The majority of my days as a mom are pure joy.  But there a dark days, too.  Days I find my beautiful boy so deeply rooted in the quicksand at the middle of the Autism spectrum that I dare say a wrecking ball couldn’t shake him loose. 

The dark days..  I won’t lie; it’s not popular conversation.  But there are times I find myself pulled under, waving my fist at the God I adore and cursing fate.  I didn’t ask for this.  I didn’t want to have to start every conversation with a precursor.  I didn’t want my son to have some incredibly well defined condition in a medical book so he could be labeled the rest of his life and I could doubt every move I make as a mom.  Is this normal fifteen-year old boy stuff or is this because he has Asperger’s Syndrome?  Do all kids act like this or is this a new pattern of behavior he’s just now growing into?  Have we missed the diagnosis?  Are we being too hard (or too easy) on him because he has Autism?  Blah, blah, blah…  I could pave a road to China and back if I had a quarter for every time I’ve asked such questions.  Why me?  Why us?  My son didn’t ask for this.

The dark days call in to question every decision I’ve ever made as a mom.  The dark days test my stamina and make me doubt myself to the core of my being. They put my marriage in the crosshairs.  And they take my faith and put it in a mason jar and tape it to the underside of a teeter totter, tossing me up and down and shaking me until I’m barely hanging on, going too high and too fast for too long before I’m bottoming out and landing with a hard thud.  The dark days of parenting a child on the Autism spectrum take no prisoners.

The dark days make me wonder if I'm the right mom for this job.  And they cause an ache in my chest and bring a loneliness so gripping; I can’t put it into words.  Dark days bring a lot of tears.

I don’t feel like I know much right now about parenting my son and if you asked him, I’m sure he’d back me on this, putting my intelligence somewhere between that of a rock and your common variety garden slug.

It's true.  I don't always see a clear way forward. But I won’t stop trying to make the next right move no matter how dark the path.  I love my son with everything I am and I’ve never once questioned that he’s exactly the child God meant for me. No, I don’t always know what to do and I don’t always have an answer for the why.  But my belief is bigger than my fear and I love this kid.  And love is the answer.  I know that for sure.