A New Day Rising

Playlist for this post:

• Times Like These – Foo Fighters
• Coming Home, Part II – Skylar Grey
• Glorious – Macklemore
• Home – Foo Fighters

“I’m a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?” – Times Like These, Foo Fighters

I can barely contain my excitement and happiness with the latest Fox developments. Thursday night, during Fox’s ABA session at home, I was there to hear him say his name (I swear I heard a chorus of angels – his voice is the sweetest thing on this Earth!), I saw him look at a picture of Adam, then look up at Adam, and say “Dada!”, I heard him attempt to say, “all done” which sounded more like “awww duuhh” and I heard him intentionally say my name, “Mama”. Upon looking at my picture, Adam asked Fox, “Where’s Mama?” and Fox ran to me with a huge smile on his face and a big hug. I could have stayed in that moment in time forever. I cannot tell you how miraculous and remarkable it is to hear your child say your name, with intention. It is something that too many people take for granted. When your child is verbal and can say everything, repeat everything after you, describe their days to you, tell you what they want to eat, tell you what they want to wear or not wear, etc., I imagine that doesn’t feel so miraculous at times. I cannot stress enough – please, please, enjoy their sweet little voices, even when they are annoying, or asking a million questions, or won’t stop describing everything they see, or won’t stop complaining, enjoy that they have a voice and are able to use it. Enjoy that they can do one very seemingly basic thing: communicate.

One more piece of very exciting news to share with our tribe: Adam and I have officially decided to return our little family of three (plus one dog and one cat) to Indianapolis once our current lease is up in October. This is something we have been talking about and trying to figure out over the summer together. This was one of the hardest decisions I think we have ever had to make. There are two things that we are going to miss beyond measure: our UWAC team and the Goddard School in Redmond. Both UW and the Goddard School Redmond have been there for us through some of the most challenging, upsetting moments of our lives as parents, and some of the sweetest, most victorious moments as well. We will miss the tremendous support and services that they both collectively provide to us and Fox.

Living here alone and 2,000 miles away from any friend or family ultimately is just too difficult for us to continue moving forward in our lives in Washington. We’re taking wonderful care of Desmond here with all his tremendous support and therapy; however, Adam and I both are exhausted, stressed, and just burnt out because all we focus on is work, therapy, learning everything we can about autism, and helping our Fox. There is no support for either Adam or myself. There is nothing to look forward to collectively; there are no date nights, no family dinners, no support if we’re sick or having bad days and just need someone to talk to, no “time off” from life, and no time off from life with autism. I’m not afraid to say all the above has been a challenge, and to best serve Fox and be the parents we want to be for him, we must do so with some support of our own, such as our families and friends. Something that has stuck with me since the day we received the diagnosis for Fox at the Center on Human Development and Disability (CHDD) at the UW Medical Center, was Dr. Cindy Johnson saying that if anything ever became too much, or we felt imbalanced in any way, the right thing for us to do would be to take a step back, assess the situation, and do the right thing for our family unit overall. I feel confident that is exactly what we are doing with moving back to Indianapolis.

I want to also share that there have been beautiful, magical moments here in Washington for our family. I am sad to leave it behind because even though it has been the most challenging 18 months of my life, Washington has become home. I’ve been called a “local” numerous times now – and that makes me feel like I actually belong. Washington is a beautiful state that honors many of the things that Adam and I believe in. I am eternally grateful to have lived in Washington and to have experienced its majesty firsthand. Fox learned how to crawl here. He learned how to climb stairs here. He learned how to walk here. He met his best buddy “T” here. We’ve experienced extreme highs and extreme lows here together as a family. We’ve experienced unprecedented beauty and adventure that cannot be replicated: Mount Rainier, Pike Place Market, University of Washington in the Spring with all the cherry blossoms, crabbing in Skagit Bay off Camano Island – seriously, there’s nothing like just pulled from the water crab with butter, Anacortes and Fidalgo Bay, Mount Baker, Lake Washington, ferry boats, Fremont, Bainbridge Island, and who could forget, the Space Needle! That’s where Fox’s first birthday was, and where he first learned how to use a straw, much to my surprise after I forgot his water sippy cup that day. In all that beauty though, there is always one thing missing, and it is that very thing that is at the core of who Adam and I are as individuals and who we are as a family unit. That missing piece is our family, which is made up of our friends, blood relatives, and our community that surrounds us. There’s a Macklemore lyric in the song “Can’t Hold Us” that says: “I got my city right behind me, if I fall, they got me, learn from that failure, gain humility, and we keep marching…”. I think about that lyric a lot and I just don’t feel that way where we currently are. I have no sense of community (though Adam and I do work with a bunch of kick ass people!). I do, however, have that community in Indianapolis, and by extension, so does my family. I have always felt like Indianapolis had my back. To return some sense of balance to our lives, and to live our core value of family as a top priority, we are returning home to Indianapolis in October.