Lend a Helping Hand

As I was preparing to write my next blog article and I laid out my files, I realized that I am missing an entire year of Travis’s school life. When I look through the files for Travis’s next school setting I see that he began there when he was well into his sophomore year.

After taking a second look back I found my mistake. Travis actually attended The Joshua School (TJS) for three and a half years. In my past blogs I wrote that he attended for two and a half years. I will need to go back and fix those blogs.

Today I decided to put off writing about his next placement and to stop and take a breath. Last week was a hard week of writing.

Once a month I play Bunco with a group of women that all live in the same subdivision as me. Over the years they have become great friends to me and many of them have been a great source of support. We always meet an hour before our actual start time so that we can catch up with what is going on in each other’s lives.

That’s when I learned that it was not only a hard week of writing for me, but also a hard week of reading for my followers. Several of the women there came to me with specific comments about my most recent writing. One friend told me that it made her sad.

One friend told me that I am one of the strongest women she knows. She said that she could not imagine how I did it all. Advocating for Travis is a time consuming undertaking and it seems never ending. While raising our son, we were also raising our daughter. During this time I went back to school to obtain my MBA at Colorado State University. I owned a Hallmark store for several years.

After selling that business I opened a Cookies by Design franchise store. And six months later I bought a second Cookies by Design shop. At the same time I served on several local boards. I mentioned in the past that I served on our local school board for eight years. That is part of the reason it was so hard for me when the district let our son down.

I also served on the local chamber board, park and recreation board and library board. I served as president of our local Rotary Club. And I served several years as co-site coordinator of our local 9Health Fair.

As a business owner I worked with our local middle school mentoring eighth grade students. I would get a new student every eight weeks during the school year and work with them on job skills.

Tracy thought I was crazy. But I truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child. Many of you that know me know that helping others feeds my soul. I explained to Tracy that serving my community was my hobby.

Our daughter Corey was also very involved, in everything. She not only took advanced placement classes, she also graduated high school with I think thirty three college credits. An entire year of college. She dove on the swim team. She took gymnastics lessons and also attended competitions. She was a competitive cheerleader. We traveled to places like Las Vegas and Orlando for national competitions. She also became involved in serving her community.

She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. Later in college she volunteered with SAVA and CSU RamRide. And now she owns her own business, Ascend Learning and Educational Consulting. And from that grew Ascend Smarter Intervention. Corey writes curriculum and conducts trainings for educators in person and also online with webinars.

Corey’s business performs educational assessments, and offers tutoring and support for children with dyslexia, ADHD and other learning disabilities. When she realized that she couldn’t help enough kiddos with just herself and her staff, she started training others on her system of helping kiddos.

Like mother like daughter? One of my favorite sayings is, “The life you live is the lesson you teach”.

One saving grace was that there was seven years between Corey and Travis. So she was a mature young lady when Travis was really starting to struggle.

How did I do it all? I just kept going. My house was cleaner then. Because I had to keep to a strict schedule. Now I think, I’ll just dust tomorrow. Day after day.

But seriously, how did I do it? I got by with a little help from my friends. (Did you just go back and sing that in your head?)

It actually takes a special friend or family member to reach out their hand and offer to help. Travis has an aunt and uncle in Kansas that invited him to stay at their house for a week one summer. I know there are some funny stories from that visit. I remember all the school type stuff because I have Travis’s daily notes home books, and I printed virtually every email I sent or received to school staff. But I have a harder time remembering the details from these visits.

We had a young lady from our church that babysat on occasion. Later she became an employee at my Hallmark store. As time went on my other employees got to know our family and would babysit here and there.

When I owned my Cookies by Design shop I had a gentleman come in and apply for a delivery driver position. I looked at his resume and told him that I couldn’t afford him. He had a successful career and I couldn’t understand why he would even be interested in the delivery position. He shared with me that he was retired and looking for something to get him out of the house. He was collecting social security and wanted to be careful not to make too much money and be penalized. (My kind of employee!)

We worked together for years. But the reason I bring him up is because he was available most any time we asked to help us in some way with Travis. Anytime we had a personal life scheduling issue he was there to lend a helping hand. Sometimes it was a ride to or from school. Or an afternoon or evening of Travis at his house. Even overnight. He would take Travis out to eat. I would describe this man as an extra grandpa to Travis.

And he lived just a few blocks down the street from us. So when Travis was angry with us and able to escape, oftentimes we found him at this man’s house. (You know who you are!)

Travis also had a grandpa that worked with him once per week for several weeks trying to teach him some welding skills.

Our daughter Corey married a terrific guy. He treats her good and is a great dad. Before they married he offered to bring Travis with him to his family’s cottage in Maine for several days. He was going there to help his mother with a project. I teasingly asked Corey if she was sure she wanted her husband to take Travis with him, after all they were not married yet.

Our family uses humor as a coping mechanism!

The one story that sticks out in my mind from that visit was when I got a call from the mom. (Now Corey’s mother-in-law.) She was calling to ask me how to handle a situation. Apparently Travis had found a leech and was letting it feed off him. My response? Oh no, not again. Yep. Not new to me.

I think all of you friends and family members that I just mentioned should send me an email detailing your time with Travis. I will edit it in when I write my book!

I call these times that Travis was in the care of another RESPITE. Unfortunately respite times for us were few and far between. And still are even today. If any of you are raising a child with special needs, you already know how important it is to take some time for yourself. And take care of yourself in other ways too. Whatever works for you. Maybe it’s a massage or a bubble bath. Maybe you have a friend or family member that spends time with your kiddo so you can just be. Or shop. Or sleep.

I call it filling my bucket. It is not good for any of us if I let my bucket run dry. I fill my bucket in the mountains. I like to hike, ATV and snowmobile.

I found the best respite was when Travis spent time with friends or family. They already knew his story. And I knew he was in good hands.

We signed Travis up for a three night, four day camp for special needs kids one summer. It was expensive but we understood why. It takes special training for camp counselors to meet the needs of these kiddos. Before I even had a chance to relax I received a call from his camp counselor. They were unsure if they would be able to keep Travis at the camp because he would not follow directions.

When I asked for an example he said that it was a rule that camp attendees needed to wear a life jacket anytime they were within ten feet of the water. Travis did not want to wear it when he was not actually in the water. And I can see where he was coming from. There were kids with different levels of disabilities. But the same rules for everyone.

So I told the counselor exactly how to handle it. I told him to tell Travis that he knew he was a great swimmer. Because he is. The only reason he wanted Travis to wear the life jacket was to set an example for the other campers. I shared with the counselor that Travis had a heart for others with disabilities. I told him to find ways for Travis to help the counselors, make him an assistant of sorts.

Travis made it with no problems through the rest of the camp session. He came home with a memory stick full of pictures.

Looking through the pictures I see Travis helping others with many activities including rock climbing. I cannot add any of these pictures because they have other people in them and I would need their permission. I will keep looking and come back and add some if I can find some of just him.

So in answer to the question, how do I do it?

Another parent on www.theautismsite.com sums it up perfectly, “Here’s the thing - I’m not any different or better than any other parent. We all love our children, and every one of us does our best to give them every opportunity, and overcome every obstacle to give our kids the best of what life has to offer. Some days it feels like way more than what we can handle. Some days we don’t feel like very good parents. Some days we just need to be real, and share the struggle. The best thing you can do is listen”.

Lend a hand when you are able. No matter how small. Every bit can make a difference in the life of another. Even if it’s just listening.

“The most useful asset of a person is not a head full of knowledge, but a heart full of love, with ears open to listen, and hands willing to help. - www.trans4mind.com