To Be Known, Loved, and Wanted As I Really Am

Maybe it’s because I’m running on a cold early-September morning, but my legs feel like lead weights completely incapable of propelling the rest of my body forward.  I’m trying to get into a rhythm when it occurs to me that I’m holding my breath.  I’ve somehow become so lost in replaying the morning’s events that I have forgotten to breathe normally.   My inner dialogue, which is usually harsh and unrelenting, is today quite gentle – reminding me that being a mom isn’t easy and never has been.  So, start letting it all go – exhale with every stride and relax your shoulders.   Inhale slowly.

“I am so tired mommy.  So, so tired. I just can’t go to school!  I can’t. I hate it! I’m too tired.”  He takes a big breath and continues in a flurry.  “It’s so hard.  It’s so stressful.  It’s so tiring.  I’m so exhausted!”  Exhausted.   This last word is now the first word that escapes from my sobbing, shaking son.  This is Jack.  He’s 12 and he’s incredible.  Yes, even at 5:30 a.m. as I stroke his Dutch-boy blonde hair and ask him to take one, big deep breath, he is incredible to me.  He breathes in feebly.  It’s a valiant attempt but still does nothing to quell his sobs.  Jack is my challenge, but he’s the most incredible challenge I’ve ever experienced.

Born Jackson Collins, he is a twin – entering this world 9 minutes earlier than his sister and about 6 years after his big brother.  If you ask Jack, he’ll tell you he’s the middle child, “…dealing with severe middle child trauma.”  But the reality has nothing to do with his birth order – Jack has Asperger Syndrome, which is considered a high functioning form of autism. When he was born until about the age of 18 months, we used to joke in frustration that Jack had two gears – sleeping or screaming.  When he had refused to walk by 20 months, we knew something was wrong with him aside from just being an abnormally colicky, temperamental, sensitive child.

To be fully known and fully loved

At around mile two, I decide to stop and retie my shoes thinking that it may offer me just enough time to re-engage and possibly salvage this run.  I’ve often said that running is a great release for me when I have thoughts that need processing and emotions that need compartmentalizing.  But, I’m having trouble this morning with thoughts about Jack bombarding me from all angles.  He struggles.  His whole life has been a struggle and I believe it always will be a struggle – but I am thankful that God provided him with some astounding coping skills.  He’s overcome debilitating social anxiety, manages his obsessive compulsive behavior in the most mysterious ways, and has even nurtured some long-term, close friends.  He’s finally learned how to acknowledge others’ feelings and to even show empathy – with what I believe may even be real emotion.

When I have quiet moments to think only about Jack and his life, my tears flow readily.  I think this is why I was so drawn in by Brennan Manning’s parable, “Patched Together:  A Story of My Story.”  The main character is a little boy named Willie Juan, a lonely boy who finds belonging in the eyes of the mysterious “Man of Sorrows.”  Willie Juan is different – physically and emotionally – and these differences cause him to question who he is and why he exists.  Much like Willie Juan, Jack may not know why he feels and reacts the way he does, but he does understand that he feels and reacts differently than other people.  He is just different.

I’m thinking about how Willie Juan falls into a deep sleep in this grandmother’s arms as she’s tenderly comforting him and retelling him the story of how he came into this world. Deep in thought, I realize that I’m on mile five already.  My run feels much warmer and the wind has calmed down.  I breathe in and notice I’m much more relaxed, probably because the movie of my mind is replaying all the things that make Jack so incredible – his intelligence, quick wit, musical talent, his memory, and his ability to recall even the most minute details about a moment or event.  Oh, yes, and he is unedited.  You see, Aspie kids don’t often employ a filter – they say exactly what they think, whenever they want and wherever they are.  Some days it’s refreshing and funny.  Some days it’s simply embarrassing.  And then there are days when his words just take your breath away.  One night as I was putting the twins to bed and closing their bedroom door, Jack called out, “Mommy, you know what?  I’m pretty sure if you weren’t my mom, I’d be dead by now.”  This stopped my beating heart, but I never forgot his words.  In his “Aspie-Jack” way, he was telling me he loved me and that he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I loved him.

The tiny baby who writhed in pain when I held him, rejected my touch when he was a toddler, and stood stiff as a board when I hugged him, now proclaims that he loves me before I even have a chance to tell him first and squeezes me tightly with every hug.  So when I started reading the story of Willie Juan, I was devastated thinking that Jack suffered in the same way – being different and uncertain and alone.  Then, as I read on to see how Willie Juan experiences the incredible, one-way love of the “Man of Sorrows” and transforms into a boy who is capable of not only loving others, but of also loving himself, I was wrecked.  Willie Juan is saved because he is fully known and fully loved as he really is.  And, I believe that this is what saves Jack.  How strange that my eyes weren’t open to any of this until a friend gave me Manning’s innocent little tale about a fictional boy and his life’s journey with Abba?  I’m thinking, you know, it isn’t so strange after all.