If I could do math, I'd calculate how many months, weeks, and days it's been since Wolf has spent a holiday at home. I'm not even sure we really know what "home" means to him, anymore.
For all the blessings heaped upon Wolf and our family this past year, we are also sad that he won't be with us again this year, on the last Thanksgiving and Christmas of his "childhood."
Oh, I know he is safe, warm, and loved where he is, and that his surrogate family will do their absolute best to make sure all the boys are treasured and gifted. But Wolf, like so many kids who don't "get" the whole concept of their disability, only wants to know why he is not home. Even after four Christmases away, he does not connect the dots from behavior to privilege to home.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that all the kids experience escalating behaviors around the holidays, which makes it harder for staff to enforce boundaries and families to just ask for a child to be "let off the hook" for the holidays. The irony is painful for the entire family. I'm tired of cutting and pasting together Christmas cards with single images, divided, instead of one, solid, family photo.
Bear told the dentist the other day that Wolf might be coming home for Christmas; interesting, because we have not talked about it at all. Wolf said today in the New Hour of Power that he just doesn't understand why, if he wanted to come home, that we wouldn't "let" him.
If only it were that easy, boys. I'd wish both of you together in a minute.
2 comments:
You are all in my thoughts and prayers, and I appreciate your openness in sharing this challenging journey. I am very aware that someday I could have a similar story...
a mama's heart is in doing what is best for her child, even a man/child. =)
blessings, Sheri
Heartbreaking. The idea that behavior has consequences must be one of the hardest concepts for people to consistantly apply. :(
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