Farewell Dad

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February 10, 1939 - August 31, 2013

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Acceptance Doesn't Happen Once

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Reflections from a retreat talk on being called, chosen, and sent as daughters of the Holy Spirit. I used to think acceptance was something that happened once. That eventually you reached a place where you made peace with the hard thing and then moved forward. I’m a wife and a mom of six. And five of my children have some level of disability—autism or Down syndrome. One of my daughters has both. My life has been full and beautiful, but also very different than what I imagined. And it didn’t all happen at once. In 2003, I was already well into navigating life with my twin boys’ autism diagnosis, while also raising their older brother. We were just figuring things out as we went and letting go of what I thought life would look like. I really thought I had found my footing and was handling things pretty well. But I’ve come to see that acceptance doesn’t happen once. It comes in layers.  And over the years, there have been other layers too: Infertility… adoption… other unexpected heart...
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When I was a little girl, I was never far from my mom’s side. I was the epitome of a Mama’s girl particularly with being an extremely shy and introverted child. For those that know her, my mom didn’t have a shy or introverted bone in her body.  New experiences or changes in my life always brought me great anxiety. My mom had a way about her though, that made those anxiety provoking moments seem less terrifying. She’d make them appear less daunting by giving me options that I could wrap my head around. She’d say “try it once”, “give it a week” or even said once, “go one year and then we’ll talk again” (this was when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go off to college). I remember her taking my complete stranger of a roommate, when I was a freshman at Purdue, to lunch and shopping for matching bedding to help ease my roommate and I into a very new and strange living situation.  She was my rock growing up.  Becoming a mom myself in 1994, I actually went and lived with my parents for...
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Social Life...What Social Life?

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It can be a lonely world when you have multiple children with special needs especially when you add a bit of shyness into the mix (okay, a lot of shyness).  A few years back, I started to realize the majority of my daily social interactions were with my kid's teachers, therapists or doctors.  A busy schedule of therapies, developmental schools and doctor appointments make up our weekdays, while on weekends we may have a few activities, but for the most part we often stay home.  Waiting rooms can be a social outlet for me to meet people, but rarely do any long term friendships arise and usually I run (blissfully kid free) errands while the kid(s) are in therapy or school because taking my kids shopping gives me hives.  I'm kinda kidding. By the time I get home at the end of my day, I'm ready to  collapse  stay at home. Another unusual factor is my husband, Matt, is home most days (since he's a musician he usually performs at night) and that contr...
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