Grief

Diagnosis Day

March 19, 2009

One year ago, we spent that March 19th in shock and in tears, stunned and lost. I can picture every part of that small office and the way I kept gripping and releasing the arm rest of the faux leather couch. I can still see the doctor looking at us, eyes full of understanding, clipboard [...]

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The 439 Stages of Grief

January 6, 2009

[Note from me: This is another draft installment of that collection of essays and reflections that I hope to someday compile into a book. The first one I posted was "What if he never talks?", though I plan for other posts here to someday appear in that collection too. As always, comments are welcome.] The [...]

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What Christmas Means to Me This Year

December 24, 2008

As I talk to other parents who are making their final preparations for Christmas, it reminds me that in our family, we are writing our own story. J-Man seems to have little – if any – understanding of what Christmas is, why there’s a tree in our living room with white lights on it (though [...]

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Wordless Wednesday – First Day of School Edition

September 3, 2008

Sniff.

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Giving Thanks for Therapists – A Season of Transitions

June 22, 2008

Assuming you have good relationships with them – which to a person we’ve had with all of ours – your child’s therapists become your friends; they leave and you mourn. They bring you the one blessing you want as much as anything. They help your child take the one step at a time they need [...]

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From the Way-Back Machine – Reflections on Father’s Day

June 14, 2008

I found these words in a journal I was writing in almost three years ago, before J-Man was born. What it would be like for the me-of-then and the me-of-now to meet given everything that has happened! And what would the me-of-then think of how many layers of meaning there were to his words that [...]

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Gloom, Despair, and Agony On Me

March 21, 2008

While I’m trying not to act like the above title (10 points if you know where it’s from. 20 if you sing it!), it’s a little glum around the ol’ Flashlight house these days. We’re still trying to work our way through the stages of grief everyone talks about – and I’m stuck in the [...]

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Three letters that change your life

March 20, 2008

We have a diagnosis – ASD. As our readers know, we had the J-Man’s autism evaluation yesterday and the doctor didn’t even need to score the evaluation to tell us that the J-Man has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). That spectrum includes a wide and diverse range of things so the more exact diagnosis won’t [...]

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