Where is he? Who is he?

I want someone to tell me where he is going to be.  I want to believe all the mothers who tell me that he will be talking up a storm in a year's time.  I want to believe he will call me Mom, maybe even tell me he loves me.

I don't know if I am giving up or accepting reality, but we have decided to scale back Zach's programs.  Since transitioning into school, he appears to have lost some skills.  I want to know why.  There are medical tests, there are therapists, there are psychologists, all these people who are experts, but no one who can tell us what to expect.  We can only look at what is going on.

There are no promises in any of this.  The therapy type we have chosen had a 47% recovery rate in a major study many moons ago.  Assuming identical conditions which we don't have,  that still leaves 53% of no recovery.  In the initial study some of the children were forever non-verbal and non-communicative. 

The fact is throughout all of this, we have been beating ourselves up for the errors we know there are between this research that showed such positive outcomes, and our therapy choices and environment for Zach.  Getting everything right seems close to impossible - there isn't enough money or people to help us achieve the perfect scenario.  We feel bad for not trying every possible treatment that we have heard about.  We feel bad about taking time for ourselves to do something like go for a run or watch a half hour of TV.  We feel that somehow in all of this, it is our failings that have been creating the lack of progress in Zachary's development. 

Perhaps he will be who he is, and we are supposed to accept that, without thinking we can contribute to his successes.  Is it our egos getting in the way?  Our feelings of helplessness since no one, especially the "experts" can give us any idea of what to expect? 

Every now and again when I find myself exasperated with where he is at - I try and take a deep breath, and take a moment to just enjoy him, smile at him, make him giggle, hold him.  I then go off to my laptop at some later time, write down a brief summation of what is going on, share it with you all, and cry.  I want to accept and love Zachary for who he is, my sweet sweet boy, but I just cannot replace the longing in my heart to have him show some notable progress, and we are just not getting that right now.  This isn't about him saying my name, I know he knows who I am.  This isn't about his saying "I love you", I know he does with every cuddle he gives me and those long passionate kisses of his!  I just want to have the joy of seeing him develop, even if it is in his own way, and I don't feel like we have that right now.  I don't care if he is slower than the other kids.  I got over that a long time ago.  I don't care if he even keeps up with the other kids with autism right now.  I just want to see some glimmer of light that he is on a path to somewhere.  I would love to have someone tell me he is going to progress- and in all honesty, we have a lot of people who do tell us that (chiropractors, therapists, homeopaths, other parents) but I don't believe them.  In some of these cases, they are likely trying to give us hope, perhaps in others they are trying to sell their wares.

I pray that the longing in my heart to hear him functionally speak go away if that is not what is meant to be.  I pray that every time I see a child his age, or younger, effectively communicate with their parent, that I don't feel a nauseous feeling in my stomach.  

There are experts, there are specialists, there are researchers.  And no one has any answers.  No one can predict what he will be able to do.

The longing in my heart brings me back to a different time in my life.  I was freshly 30, had lost my father the year prior, and when looking back at a decade of non-stop boyfriends, I realized that I was wasting my life chasing after something that I shouldn't.  I prayed with a friend and asked God that if I was not intended to be married, and in a committed relationship, that he take the longing in my heart away.  Within a few weeks, for the first time ever in my life, I broke up with my boyfriend while still having very strong feelings, but realizing the toxicity of the relationship.  It was the first time in my life that I felt secure by myself and confident that life was OK without having a partner.  I felt so empowered by my new sense of self, that I went and purchased luggage and had it monogrammed.  Well, like the jokester He is, a few months later, I met Steve.  A few months after that Steve and I were dating. And a year after that we were married.  And now I have a complete set of Eddie Bauer luggage with the wrong monogram on it.  That luggage has navigated its way through the United States, Canada, France, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, and Germany.  Who cares about the monogram.

I wonder what tricks God has up his sleeve with Zach.  Will I realize that he is who he is, and that my love for him is enough?  Should I accept that he has autism, and that he will be who he is, regardless of intervention?  Do I continue to pursue the details of this disorder and how they pertain to him?  Do I continue to fight the insurance companies, school districts, and others who refuse to pay for diagnosis and treatments?  

Where is he on this journey?  Will he ever be able to tell me how he feels?  Could he be a dentist one day?

I pray that this new perspective on his therapy give us that pinpoint of light we so desperately want to see.