Intangible loss

Today as I watched my son (20 years old) scurry out the door to run to the bus I had one of those familiar feelings of loss.  Not one of true loss but loss of what might have been.  My son has autism and cannot speak more than a few words and the ability to communicate his needs or desires is limited to the picture exchange system.

I've always been one of those people that believe you should "play the hand you were dealt" to borrow a poker phrase and not feel cheated by it.  Its easy to do that for yourself, but much harder to impose it on others.

Recently my family dealt with the loss of my 14 year old Nephew to cancer and it was a devastating loss to his parents and sisters.  In a rare moment my Father reached out with a sympathetic gesture to me while were all dealing with this.  At the time we were dealing with an issue related to my son and he said something like "I suppose you have gone through something very similar with him (my son) that your sister is dealing with now", I asked him what he meant because I was flabbergasted - I couldn't conceive at the time what he meant.  He explained that she has a tangible loss but you have been dealing with the same kind of loss over a long period of time.  I appreciated the gesture but I didn't really agree - I still had my son.

But in that moment this morning as I watched him run out to the bus because he hadn't noticed it as early as he normally does and was anxious about (I can only imagine) the rift in his schedule I did experience a feeling of loss.  It is a realization that "this is it", he will be dependent on someone for the rest of his life.  He will not get married, will not have children, he will not achieve greatness in a career - all of those things that parents typically wish for in their children.  Parents of disabled children deal with this constantly but I make myself believe that I am immune to it.  These feelings are fleeting for me, but do occur and I am grateful for that as it is debilitating.

Even today I have hope for my son.  I have hope because we have a community of people that care about him and help him to improve his life on a daily basis.  Where there is love, there is hope.