August is a month of transition for many families. A new school year is either starting or getting ready to start. It's the frantic moments of making sure summer work is finished, school supplies are purchased, and new school shoes are sought out. I know that there are a range of mom emotions that accompany the impending start of school. Some moms can.not.wait for school to start and to get back into a consistent routine after filling a summer with activities to keep kids occupied and make memories. On the opposite extreme, some moms grieve as the end of summer approaches and their kids get ready to launch into another year of growing and changing.
(I tend to be the grieving mom...although there is a sense of peace in having a consistent routine. So maybe I fall just a little closer to the middle of the pendulum swing!)
Some years include transitions with a capital "T", aka milestone years. My youngest son will be in 8th grade this year and my baby girl, who is definitely not a baby, is entering middle school. They will be having a big transition year.
The biggest transition this year is happening to my son, Peter. Peter is severely affected by autism and turns 22 on the very last day of July. The town we live in does not have a program for kiddos with more severe special needs, so they have always funded Peter's participation in area collaborative programs. Peter has been in his current collaborative since he was 7. Collaboratives work differently than regular classrooms. Peter has had the same classroom and friends for several years at a time before he aged into another program within the collaborative. The teachers were different, but the kids mostly stayed the same.
The morning that I'm writing this, I attended the last IEP meeting for Peter. It was really just a formality. Less than a week after the meeting, Peter ages out as a student covered by the school system and his IEP means nothing anymore. We have been blessed to live in a town that has always helped us to take good care of Peter. We have not known the angst of stressful IEP meetings or having to fight for things that we felt our son needed. My husband and I decided long ago that, if we were going to move to a new home, it would have to be in the same town because of how well they have always provided for Peter. We know that this level of services, and the relative ease in order to get those services, is not everyone's experience. While caring for a child with special needs is never easy, not having to fight for what we felt he needed from the school system was a tremendous blessing that we are so appreciative of.
My level of emotion at the relatively short meeting surprised me. I'm not usually a "crier", but I couldn't stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks as different people spoke. I was able to relay my thanks to our SPED director and Peter's teacher as I planned, but it was with a quivering voice. The minute the call ended, I stopped trying to control the sadness and let my sobs out.
My tears happened for so many reasons. Peter's journey in the school system began as a 3 year old little guy with no language and is ending as a full grown 6 foot man who is able to communicate and care for at least some of his basic needs independently. It has been a long, often hard, road to get to this point. "Graduating" into adult services, where the care is very different, is a bit scary. No longer receiving his care through a place that felt safe is a big loss for us. Having to hear Peter articulate, "I'm graduating on Thursday. I'm going to miss my friends. I'm going to miss my teachers.", breaks my heart every time he says it. (Which is multiple times an hour. Peter repeats and perseverates on things in order to work through them.)
I wish I could save him from this heartache and make the transition easier, but I can't. Isn't that the plight of a mother's heart ... when "magic mommy kisses" no longer solve our kids' real life problems?
I know from experience that this build up to the ending is worse than starting the next step and getting used to our "new normal". It reminds me of when one of our sons went to grad school. I did most of my grieving in the weeks leading up to the change. Once he left, there was sadness but also an acceptance and readiness to move forward. I'm hoping that Peter's transition is the same.
Motherhood is always growing and stretching us in new ways. There is the literal stretching of growing a new little person in our body, the physical sacrifices of pregnancy and birth, and the exhaustion of sleepless nights and constant care. As children grow their needs change and the demands on our emotional and mental energy outweigh the physical demands, but it's still never easy. Those teenage years as they practice pushing off from us and attempting independence can be down right painful. That final push of independence can be as painful for us as all the pushing we did to bring them into the world.
The trouble with transitions is that they highlight the fact that we really aren't in control of anything. Transition means change is coming, whether we are ready and willing or not! While we can do 'all the things' to prepare to make a transition more smooth, the hardest thing to prepare is our hearts. It's much easier to check off a to-do list than to sit with the grief and the loss of the way our lives are shifting and the way our family will change. It's hard to step out from what is known and comfortable and start off on a new path that we aren't at all sure about. New paths don't mean things will be bad, but different is not easy to get used to. New paths stretch our trust muscles that God is going to work everything out and hold us as we travel this unknown land.
Transitions definitely highlight how much I like to imagine that I'm the one that's in the driver's seat. Change is an opportunity to work on surrender and cast off the cape of self-sufficiency that I'm inordinately attached to. Transitions are a reminder to myself that my children ultimately belong to God, that He has a plan for each of them, and that He loves them more than I ever could.
In the midst of change, let's hold on to St. Zelie, a fellow mom who can intercede for us in Heaven:
"The Good Lord does not do things by halves;
He always gives what we need. Let us then carry on bravely."
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