Days Like Today

I love to golf. I'm horrible at it, but I love it. I have played hundreds of times and my game has improved, slightly, subtlety, almost imperceptibly. In fact if you didn't know me or hadn't golfed with me you would never see the improvements.

If you have golfed you will be able to identify with the feeling I am about to describe. After shanking shot after shot into the trees, the lake, the next fairway, and even into houses close to the course, the inevitable conversation starts in your head. It goes something like this:

[After shank #6]
"Maybe I should take up bowling. There are tons of fat guys that do that."

[After shank #15]
"They don't seem to have a problem. It can't be near as frustrating as this stupid game."

[After shank #22]
"Yeah, bowling! That would be the perfect pass time."

[After shank #??, because you quit counting after thirty something]
"That's it I'm throwing these #@$% clubs into the next body of water I see!"

Then you line up at 18, it's a long par four and because you are so exhausted from chasing your ball and so fed up with this entire game you begrudgingly pull out the driver. You know its going left...or right...or way left...or way right, but right now you don't really care. You tee up your ball, not giving any thought to height, look down the fairway with little to no regard for your alignment, hall off and smack the ball with everything you've got. Again, not giving one hoot where it goes.

Your buddy exclaims, "Nice shot!" And since you have been taking his ribbing for the last 17 holes you decide that an acceptable alternative to throwing your clubs in the lake will come with wrapping your driver around his head. You are just about to do so when your eyes look up and you see it. Your beautiful shot sailing down the middle of the fairway, bounding toward the green, and settling just shy of the putting surface. You smile.

[After nice drive #1]
"You know what, all I need to do is get out more and I could really be good at this game."

That was our day today. Spirit was in church, and after the week we have had I was ready to chuck the clubs into the lake. Yet there he was, reverent, participatory, angelic. I don' know where it came from, I don't dare ask, but like the drive that bought my next round of golf, today bought me more time. Time to cope, time to understand, time to reflect, because Spirit is exactly that, the Spirit of our house, and there is no one on this planet I trust more than him.

So well done Spirit, you just bought another 18 holes.

Medical Diagnosis

Spirit, Heart, and I have spent the last three weeks navigating the medical diagnosis process. It's basically the equivalent of the SAT test. Ask the same questions hundreds of times in a different way to see if the answers consistently point to what everyone is seeing. So two days ago we sat with a psychologist provided by the school district, and she pointed us to what we already knew. PDD-NOS (Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) the autistic diagnosis equivalent eh...I don't know.

Here's what we know:

We know he has autism.

We know he is very high functioning.

Pretty much anything we thought we knew before. Interestingly enough you put yourself in this position that when the news drops you're like: "Okay, that's exactly what we thought it was." And yet through all the smiles, the quirky stories, and the familiarity of the situation, you're secretly hoping that the Psychologist in front of you is going to laugh a little then tell you that you are crazy. He is just a normal nine year old with some idiosyncrasies and he will outgrow it.

No such luck. I've never had some sort of a terminal cancer, never been given news that devastated me, the closest I've ever come was when I misheard my mother giving me some bad news about my cousin, and for about ten minutes I thought my Dad was dead. Yet as the smiling, understanding, charming woman sitting across the table from us indicated that our observations were correct, the lump in my throat got larger and larger. It doesn't matter how many times I played the situation out in my mind, when she confirmed what we already knew, my heart sank.

All I could think was, "what now?"

What now? Now we live by lists, we look for ways to control the environment around him we assist him in dealing with the constant attacks from everyday interactions.

I quote one of my son's favorite movies.

"We're about to go over a cliff aren't we?"

"Yep"

"Sharp rocks at the bottom?"

"Most likely."

"Bring it on."

So we're busy embracing the finality of Spirit's diagnosis.

Bring it on.