FLYING LESSONS

            I hate it when my kids go back to school each fall. While many parents are glad to send their kids off on the school bus, I’m one of those parents who loves having my kids home. I enjoy hearing their laughter, interacting with them throughout the day and knowing they are close by. It’s like losing a tooth; I notice its absence and my tongue keeps going to that empty space until my brain finally adjusts to the new normal. Without my kids around, the house feels empty and strangely silent.       

While I feel anxious about sending all three of my sons to a public school, I especially feel tense in regards to my special-needs child. Each year brings new fears and concerns. Every morning, as Benjamin prepares to leave, my mind churns, running through the items he needs to take but can’t afford to leave at home lest he have a meltdown at school. Every time the phone rings my heart plummets. I wonder if the special education teacher or the principal is calling to ask that I come pick up Benjamin ASAP. What has he done now? I check the clock every few minutes, wondering how he’s handling his new routine. I pray he won’t have homework which will eat into his home activities and might cause a meltdown.

My kids’ school has been very good to all three of my boys, and the teachers deal with my special-needs child’s eccentricities, I still worry. I know he’s in excellent hands, that they have the training needed to deal with his autism. I know they love my not-so-little-anymore boy, yet I still struggle with not being there to watch over him.

            The thing is, when you have a young child with special needs, your life tends to revolves around his needs. Many of the choices I make center around his sensory issues and ever-present angst. I have become attuned to his silent cries for help (and sometimes not so silent ones), that when he’s gone I feel like a nursing mother without her baby; what do I do with that overflow of love and maternal sustenance?

After all, I’ve always been the one he turns to for comfort and reassurance. I’m the one who knows how to rub his head when he’s stressed. I’m the one who understands what he’s trying to say. I’m the one he’s always leaned on. As his mother, I’ve been so used to reading his body language, that I’m suddenly finding it hard to release him into this wild, crazy place we call ‘society’. I fight against the urge to keep him close, to be the buffer against a world that has the potential to cause him so much angst.

Now, suddenly, I have all these motherly instincts and acquired behaviors I need to switch off while he’s at school. I have to quell that anxiety that seems to rise up as I anticipate what might happen if he takes risks that might not work out well in the end. I have to learn I can’t protect him from the hurts and disappointments that will undoubtedly come his way. I have to wean myself off that innate desire to shield him from the very struggles that will help him grow into a capable, independent individual.

The beginning of school this year marks another step in encouraging my boy to become the man God created him to be. It’s time to surrender him to others who will also teach him valuable life lessons and guide him along those inevitable bumps in the road. It’s time to let him dream his dreams, even though I sometimes question them. It’s time to let go, to encourage him to go out in the big, wide world so he can become the best “him” he can be.

So today, I will resume those flying lessons. It’s not time yet for him to leave the nest, but I will continue teaching him flying lessons and how to stretch his wings. I will teach him how to get back up when he falls. I will take a step back and watch him from a distance, allowing him to be on his own more and more. I will teach him how to gaze at the horizon and dream big. And I will prepare my heart for the day when he will finally fly alone.

            Learning to let go. So difficult, so painful. Yet it is God’s design for parents. Fledglings are meant to leave the nest, not stay under the shelter of their mother’s wings forever.

Even those that might not fly quite like the others.