Silent Surrender

 

In many ways, the last few months have been a series of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events".....   as well as the usual series of "unrecoverable's" as Todd so fondly calls the insanity of certain incidents we could never imagine in our "Life with Autism, Seizures, & a side of PANDAS"...

I have to chuckle at my ignorance...silly me...I thought the rules of life were that if you already have one lifelong challenge, you were somehow magically exempt from all other hardships that can happen in life.  To say that I've felt suckerpunched is to say that "autism" is simply a "quirky behavior."   Not many will get that, but those who do, deeply get it.  

As I have desperately tried to navigate this unfamiliar and unwanted bump in the road so to speak - I am deeply grateful for the NDCQ motto that I have embraced thanks to being introduced to the Navy SEAL world of FORGED warriors and their NEVER QUIT mentality - not to mention the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape (SERE) training of Matt's Navy journey that began ten years ago...

"The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday" has been proven to be true in my life in so many ways.....  except I might add, for warrior families like mine, there seem to be no easy days.........

(I mean really, don't we warrior moms wish upon wishes that our "Hell Week" lasted only a week?)

Which brings me to this picture I captured a few days ago while driving my son to his Adult Day Program...

I have shared so often the incredible courage and bravery and strength it takes to get through each moment of each day.  The will to keep forging forward when the trials and tribulations pushing you backward are unrelenting and unbearable.

The smile we sometimes have to force on our face to prove the "Not Dead Can't Quit" battle we fight so ferociously & fiercely - lest others be burdened by seeing the burdens we must bear.  I cannot tell you how many times people closest to me have chided me for "not looking very happy" - "not smiling" - "being grumpy".  Those who have every freedom in life and who have never walked one step in my isolating shoes, telling me how I must look, act, feel. 

Forgive me my transgressions of transparency in that....

So what I share here is the reality of the warrior within.

Sometimes the greatest strength a person has, is allowing others to see their weakness.

Their moments when they freeze the flaming swords they are juggling.

Their moments on the battlefield when they must simply stop and reload.

Rest?

No.

There's no calvary coming to help us.

Their moments when they allow themselves to feel the pain, the struggle, the hardship they try so hard to rise above or hide.

Where even if they could talk, there would be no words.

Just a silent surrender...

For just a fleeting moment.

I look at my son in this picture and I see not his weakness, not even his momentary surrender, but his strength.

His indomitable strength, endurance, courage, bravery.

I that because I have walked beside him every step of his journey, most often it is I who must carry him if he's fallen from a seizure.  I know the wars that rage within the walls of his world because I live it with him.

And my heart overflows with bittersweet admiration & respect toward him.

Take your moment Brandon...

I have your back.

I just wish someone had ours.