April Showers Do Bring May Flowers

Our son had a wonderful birthday weekend and is now 11 years old. It didn’t go completely as planned and there were moments of stress. However, I am happy to have more ups than downs which I will gladly place in the success column for overall experience. It is so easy to loose sight of how things may look and feel different from his perspective. I think (at least I hope) I am getting better at recognizing when I missed the mark and things are not being taken in by him in the way I expected. So, a quick redirect and we were back on track. Although, I will admit that having a conversation to try to set up expectations for the weekend did not result in things going smoothly but it doesn’t mean I will not continue to have conversations that I hope will prepare him for future events. I try to remind myself that his mind sorts through things in a different way. So many times I have thought how I wish I could slip into his mind to get a better understanding of his thought process but I will just have to continue to go with the flow and try to keep my eyes open for the signals that tell me we are thinking about something from two different directions.

I look at him sometimes and reflect on how far he has come from his non-verbal days. There have been so many nights I cried trying to figure out how to get him the help he needed and how I felt like I was failing him somehow but I can see him blossoming now and I am grateful for the kind soul I see before me. He has tremendous kindness in his heart and it is beautiful to see. Although there will inevitably be more tears in our future, I will try to remind myself that there are also beautiful moments just around the corner to enjoy. I suppose April showers really do bring May flowers. We just have to wait sometimes and appreciate each individual bloom with the understanding that showers will fall again. That is just how life works. It will rain or even storm sometimes. Cherish the blooms. They will come.