Today I went to the bank to get my passport out of the safe deposit box. I figured it was probably time to renew it, even though we don’t have any specific international travel plans right at the moment. As I rifled through the box looking for it, I came across the baby journals that I wrote for Alex and Hannah. These are books I started long before they were born, when I first learned I was pregnant. I continued to write in them until each kiddo was in preschool. Alex’s journal is full; Hannah’s stops halfway through, but she is the second child and admittedly, I did kind of have my hands full by the time Hannah became a toddler.
Tucked into the front of Alex’s journal, I found a small note. It’s a copy of a letter I sent to my best friend in San Francisco and although it isn’t dated, I believe I sent it in the summer of 2006. My friend at that time was preparing for his yearly trek to Burning Man, “an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.” As part of the Burning Man community experience, each year they designed and constructed a beautiful non-denominational Temple where people could write and attach notes to loved ones, prayers, wishes, thoughts, hopes and dreams. At the end of the week-long event, the Temple was burnt down, after which everyone would pack up and head home. I had been wrestling with my guilt over Alex’s autism, trying to connect with my higher power and stay strong as Alex’s mother. I wanted to send my tangle of emotions and resolve out into the universe, somehow point it all directly towards the heavens, and let it go.
My friend did me a great honor that year by carrying the note to the Temple on my behalf. He taped it high on one of the walls and took pictures so I could see exactly where it was attached. Then he videotaped the burn. I watched and cried as my words rose in ashes straight up to the sky. I made my promises to my son, and let go of what I couldn’t control. And I felt something heal inside me.
Through all the challenges we have faced recently, and despite all the pleading prayers and focused intentions on which I’ve steadied myself, I had forgotten something important. It is not my place to determine Alex’s life. He is a child of the universe, and as such he is always cherished and protected and lifted up. My job is simply to do the best I can to take care of him while he is here on earth, and to respect the life he was born into for reasons more important than right now, and a greater purpose which I in my basic human-ness may never fully understand.
Reading the prayer of my younger-mother self today was a timely reminder of all of this. I am grateful to be able to share it with you:
Dear Alex,
I love you and I am proud of you always. I feel I was born to be your mother.
You are bright and capable and you will make great contributions to the world.
I bring this prayer here because I want to let go of my guilt. I know I did not cause your autism. But when I see you struggle with your words and scream in frustration, I wish more than anything I could make it better, make it easy for you, take away your challenges. Yet I know the easy path is not the one you’ve chosen, you chose this life for its lessons.
I pray for strength. I pray for compassion. I pray for hope.
I know that we are stronger together and that God has blessed us with each other. I promise I will never give up on you. As these prayers go up to heaven, may we both be lifted high enough to see beyond horizons.
Love, Mommy
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Autism Home Rescue 