A Miracle

The other night, I was kneeling by my bed in prayer.  My heart was so full of gratitude.  My oldest son has aspergers autism and has struggled socially throughout his whole life.  In fifth grade, his only friend outside our family was a kindergartner.  That was his maturity level I guess.  Mentally he is very smart, but socially he struggles.  As I was pondering the past few months and the miracle that has taken place in him, I was in absolute awe at how things have played out, and I had a glimpse at all the steps it has taken to get him where he is now.

In fifth grade, the school boundaries were changed and my children were placed in a new elementary school.  He STRUGGLED.  Change is not an easy thing for him.  His teacher did all she could to help him, but the class was a hard class, everything was new, and it was too much for him to handle.  But even after school was out, she wanted to help to make sure his next year went more smoothly, especially since he would have an even bigger change as he would going to the intermediate school.  She personally picked out his teachers for the next year, wrote a long letter on how she had learned to work with him, and even made sure that the troubled kids wouldn’t be in his class to set him off.  His new school also did everything they could to help him out.  His new principle let him borrow puzzles during the summer to develop in him a feeling of trust.

This year started and we had our up’s and down’s, but in general there was a steady up movement.  I had gotten a one hour a day job there at the school playing the piano for the choir.  The timing was so perfect that if I just went in 20 minutes early, I could be with him during his lunch break, the time he struggled the most.  I was amazed at his progress in the first 5 months.  But then my job was ending (due to the fact that they only have choir two trimesters and the third one is off) and I wasn’t going to be there for him anymore.  But there is loving Heavenly Father that has all things planned out way better than I could ever dream.  Two weeks before my last day there, a boy sat by him at lunch.  The next day he sat by him again . . . and again the next day.  Soon he asked RD to play with him and his friends during the lunch hour.  That day I had gone in early as usual to practice the piano and he would meet me in the choir room.  He never showed up.  I started getting really nervous.  After 15 minutes I went out to find him.  (As a mom, all these things start running through your head of all these possibilities of what could have happened to him.  He had run and hidden in the school before to get away but they had always called me when they couldn’t find him.)  I checked the lunch room hoping he was just taking a lot longer to finish.  Nothing.  I checked the halls.  Nothing.  Finally, right before I had to sign in to work, I found him, PLAYING . . . with a friend.  What blew me away is that I had never seen him act like that before.  He looked and was acting just like a normal boy his age.  I had to stand back and watch as the tears streamed down my face.  That night I prayed it wouldn’t end.  And it didn’t.

Wherever this friend is, he makes everything better.  RD started hating the bus ride and wanted me to pick him up every day.  But then one of the bus drivers quite and they decided not to get a new one, so they combined two bus routes into one, and guess who was on the other bus route, his friend.  Coincidence, I think not.

RD was changing so fast at this point, I literally had to get to know my son all over again.  He was so much happier at home, at school, everywhere.  He wanted to have a birthday party with friends over.  I didn’t know what to do because crowds usually make him really irritated.  I didn’t know how to plan it or what to expect.  And when I did try to plan something, he would say, “Mom, your ruining it, just let me handle it.”  He invited 3 friends over and 2 were able to come.  He never had a melt down the whole time.  And I got to see my son through different eyes.  These boys were not treating him like he had a disability.  They didn’t treat him like he was different.  They treated him . . . like a friend, like one of them.  And what stunned me is that RD was acting just like them, a normal 11-12 year old boy.  (Thankfully these boys, especially his best friend, are good boys and have clean mouths.  I couldn’t ask for better.)  He was laughing, MAKING JOKES, and all around just having fun.  I had done all that I could do through the years but I couldn’t have given him what this friend did.  And God knew how to make it so much better.  In the last 3 months, RD has grown socially at least 3 years.  He has hated school since before time began, but the other day he blew me out of the water again when he said, “Mom, I kind of don’t want school to end this year.”  WHAT????

Yes, he still has melt downs sometimes.  Yes he still has bad days at school sometimes. Yes when he gets in situations he doesn’t know how to handle he struggles and makes mistakes.  And when he gets around groups of a lot of people, he doesn’t handle the noise very well. But everyday just keeps getting better and better.  And each one of his symptoms gets less and less.  And as I was pondering and praying the other night, and I saw all those intricate details that went in to getting him where he is today,  I was overwhelmed.  I was incredibly grateful.  And then I felt this love.  Intense love.  Not for me.  But the love that our Father in Heaven has for him.  My Father-in-Heaven did all this for my son, because he loved him.  And I couldn’t stop crying.