We walked down the aisle (and back again) to the Beatles. Arm and arm, we walked ourselves down the aisle to "Here, There and Everywhere" until we reached the front of the mural room in an historic courthouse, and J's dad married us, with the help of some of our friends and family. Then, with "All You Need is Love" ringing out triumphantly, we made our way as husband and wife back down that aisle beaming joyously en route to our picnic celebration in the park with about 50 people who love us.
June 8 is the day we met (2000), the day we married (2002), and my favorite date, a date we use as a mantra when we need it. All You Need is Love.
Tonight J asked me if we are doing all we can to help our boy.
Is that an answerable question?
For every option, scales must be weighed. The list of what we do for our boy is lengthy, but the list of what we might consider stretches far and wide:
chelation, cranio-sacral therapy, specialized schools, medications, B shots, specific carbohydrate diet, moving somewhere with more support systems, quitting our jobs (obviously only one of us could do that), more speech therapy, more alternative medicine, social stories, social skills groups, more allergy testing....
I thought all we needed was love? The love is right here, huge, gigantic, enormous, but is it adequate?
Of course, J didn't expect me to have an answer for his question, he just wanted me to know that he needed to wrestle with it a while. I get it. It's the unanswerable question with special needs kids -- what exactly is it that they need? If only we knew, we'd give it. If only we could tease apart the countless clues and inputs and possibilities to understand when things work and when the don't and when to add a little, subtract a little, start over...
I wanted to marry J because I wanted to have a family with him. He made my dreams come true. We have two beautiful children. Do we give either of them what they need? Are we doing the best we can? These questions chew on me, and I close my eyes and hold on tight to June 8, June 8, June 8...
4 comments:
I think you answered your own question. Love is all you need (wah wah wah wah wah) Love is all you need.
Your wedding sounds beautiful, and J is divine.
Wow. I love the way you did this post. It's a great way to let us in on your history a bit and to propose a new question.
I think we do the best we can for our kids out of our love for them. Long ago, before I had kids, I started praying that I would make decisions with love. That's not an easy thing to do all of the time. Now that I have kids, this prayer has become more of a mantra. I make decisions for them every day, and I hope to make them with love, knowing that love is the motivation for all that I do for them and what I fall back on to determine if my decision is right. If I've made the best decision I can and done it with love, how can I possibly question it?
Mama Mara beat me to this comment ... which is, you already know the answer.
You can never go wrong with the Fab Four, which is sounds like your family definitely is.
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