I walk my dog every morning. I do this early. When the world is still wet and quiet, you can believe the streets belong to you.Walking my dog is uncomplicated. All I have to do is hold the leash and delight as she discovers joy in squirrels and acorns. In these mornings, it is easy to wish the entire world was a walk with my dog.

This morning, I saw a woman sitting alone on the front porch of a beautiful house. She was sobbing. We made eye contact as I passed, and a part of me wanted to turn away. I did not want to be intrusive. I stayed my eyes. There is something powerful in being a witness. I wanted to honor her pain. For a moment, all that existed was the rattle of my dog’s leash, the rumble of a distant train, my empathy mixed with this woman’s sadness.

I’ve been angry. Last week, my son was diagnosed with Autism. This was not a surprise, and still I was not prepared for it. I feel like I am walking around with my heart exposed,  all meaty and raw. I chafe every single time something touches me.

Every thing is heightened. I find myself overwhelmed by simple things like the way my son looks in his alligator backpack. I drop J off at his new school, and I wander the neighborhood completely unmoored. I enter a bookstore as a means to compose myself. I am awkward and clumsy carrying a stack of books. An elderly man stoops to pick up the car keys I keep dropping. I am wrecked by this kindness.

I am stunned by kindness, like tender replies to my awkward e-mails, or the person in the supermarket who remarks that my daughter’s eyes are a particular type of dreaming.

The world is filled with sad women and beautiful houses. I am reminded of the importance of eye contact. I find such grace and almost unbearable heartbreak in being human.

Everything I love is outside of my body; my hands are not long enough to touch.

Our boy lays down in the middle of Target and takes off his shoes. He throws them at unsuspecting customers. They shake their heads, never having seen your body tilted against a doorframe at three a.m. They do not know what I have seen. Some days you are so tired from the way that J can hit, and kick, and spit on you without provocation. Still, you find it impossible to tear yourself away. You stand over our small boy sleeping. Those nights you help him to dream.

You come to bed. I hear you slip between the sheets. I instinctively roll over and away. I am too scared to let you touch me. To scared to let myself admit that this is harder than I thought it would be. I need to protect myself from the memory of how I use to fit against the curve of you. When babies were just wishes we made on nights that were alive with stars, my back was always the soft absence of space pressed next to your heart.

I bury myself in taking J to doctor and therapist visits. I scour the internet for answers. I busy myself in cleaning the kitchen floor. At night, I crash on the sofa in the den. All my energy spent on being hyper-vigilant at the park. After a long day of mediating the distance between J’s sharp teeth and the unsuspecting skin of innocent boys and girls, our mouths become the enemy. We do not kiss the way we did before.

I do not remember the last time I told you I loved you that was not a means to exhaust a fight. We rarely laugh when talking about our future. We barely ever use the word future, at all. Everything feels tenuous, raw as an exposed nerve.  I miss us, but I keep turning my back against your hands that gave up reaching for me a long time ago.

What I want you to know is that some nights when you sleep, I whisper in your ear how much I love you. When the room is dark and still, it is easy to admit to you that I am terrified we will not be able to fix what is angry and sad inside of our boy, what is torn and tender inside of us.

I am not the type of woman who wallows in rainy days and sad songs played on repeat. I believe in action. I do research. I make lists. I do not believe that sadness is impenetrable, until suddenly it is.

Red lights stop me. I am reminded. I see my son. He sits awash in sunlight in the backseat of our car. He wears a Burger King crown and a crooked smile. He is so beautiful. The love I have for him is physical. It is like being kicked repeatedly in the chest. Love like the crushing of my ribcage. I struggle to breathe.

I bargain with the universe. Does every family need to endure a set quota of heartbreak? What is ours?

Doctor’s visits and diagnosis. I want to scream.

Take me. Take my legs. Amputate my hands. Rob me of my eye sight. Disfigure me. Make it impossible for me to piss without a bag attached to my hip. Fill my body with cancer. At the next intersection, let some drunken teenager driving his mother’s Mercedes smash into my driver’s side. Slam my brain repeatedly against the blacktop. Tear me up. Break my bones. Bloody my body.

Strip me of my words. Rob me of everything but, just take your goddamn fucking hands off my beautiful boy. Leave him to his sunshine and his lopsided crown.

I am just an ordinary woman. This is enough.

When I tell people that my son has been diagnosed on the Autistic spectrum, they look at me with pity. They say, I’m so sorry, with the sadness we reserve for the dead. Conversations take on the tone of funeral dirges. I do not fault people. I am familiar with grief.

Will my son have a best friend, go to prom, obtain a college degree, live on his own, love his job, get married, become a dad?

I do not have these answers. Do any of us? I think that there are better questions.

Will my son laugh? Will he be happy? Does he love?

I love you, Momma. I love you like a volcano. You are beautiful, Momma. Your hair smells like love and sunshine. Sissy is my best friend. I want to be a pirate. Let’s be pirates, Momma? We will sail the angry seas. Yo, Ho! Yo, Ho! Can we go outside and play? I want to run. See how high I can jump? Let’s play tag, Momma? You’re it. I’m hiding. Come find me. Pick me up. Want to hear me sing my ABC’s? Spin me around, Momma. I’m gonna hug on you. I am going to wish on the stars for chocolate cake. I want to eat chocolate cake all the time. Eat cake with me, Momma. Let’s eat cake.

My son. He is. He does.

I tell my daughter stories. There once was a little girl who was born with an enormous heart. The child’s heart was a mountain. The small girl was born perfect and full of love. Still, there existed empty spaces inside the cavern of her heart. These empty spaces rattled like pennies in a tin can

As this little girl grew, so did her heart.  Experiences filled her. The more she loved, the more her heart expanded. As her heart widened, the wind whistled in the beautiful open spaces.

The small child became a woman with a heart that thundered.

My daughter listens to this story hungry for the part when the woman becomes a mother. Oh, how the heart did stretch itself then, I tell her.

The story ends with the woman wrinkled and grey. Her heart, grown as big as the universe, beat with the memory of all the woman ever loved, finally is silent.

When the story is over, my daughter who is two and lives every day like it is a poem waiting to be written, asks,

Momma. Does a heart so big ever break?

I stare at my daughter’s hands. I think about all the things her hands will reach for, touch. My daughter’s hands are both her present and her future. They are round and soft, still chubby with an infancy the rest of her body is starting to separate from. I stare at my daughter’s beautiful hands. I listen to her whistling heart. Her heart that is a mountain.

All hearts break, baby.

I want to tell my daughter what loss feels like. I want to share hospital rooms where you bleed out babies onto sterile tables, and doctors try to fill your ache with gauze. I want her to know that angry fingers force themselves into places they should never be. I want to turn on the news and rock her hard like an earthquake. I want her to starve in my arms, just so I can arm her against hunger. I want her to get lost on the safety of her small bed, so I am sure to find her. I want to protect her. I can’t.

All hearts break, baby.  I want you to remember that when a heart cracks open, the love a Momma has for her daughter never spills out.

I put my daughter’s perfect hand inside my own. We thunder.

Hearts break. Hearts recover.

My daughter wakes up in the middle of the night. She cries for me. I find her lying cold and wet in a tangle of sheets. In the marriage of her night light and the moon, her skin is pale as halloysite. She shivers as I change her pajamas.  Shaking against my hands, my daughter is small and vulnerable. I feel tenderness like a Neruda poem.

My daughter reminds me of Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks. Neruda writes of the mermaid who stumbles into a bar. She has no clothes. The drunks assault her. They burn her body with cigarettes and toss hate like burnt corks. The mermaid, not having language, is silent through the entire assault. She does not shed a tear because tears do not belong to her. After the drunks have finished with her, she exits out the same door she entered. She climbs into the ocean and swims away. Neruda says she is clean as white stone. She swims towards emptiness, towards death. 

I find comfort in Neruda’s poetry. We are all swimming towards death. Even my daughter with new skin, moonlight perfect, unblemished, will die one day. As I put my daughter back into her bed and pull up her covers to meet her chin, I am reminded of her namesake. Last year, my Nana waved a wrinkled hand at death. She and death flirted. He rested a bony hand in hers before losing interest and relenting. I went to see my Nana in the hospital. Hooked up to monitors, she looked so small against the bed rails.  She was as beautiful as my daughter waking up in tears against some foreign night. We are all swimming towards this great empty.

When my daughter wakes up at night and calls for me to comfort her, I swell with love. I am simply overcome with it. I think about Neruda, mermaids, and drunks. Most times, I am comforted. Then, there are times when I get angry. My daughter so small, all of us so vulnerable, the arrogance of corks and cigarettes. At those times, I rage.  I dream of fire. But, even clothed in words, with the burden of my emotions, I am certain the river will wash me clean.

We stand in the kitchen and speak words like hunger. My husband makes rice and tofu. I lift the simmering lid to taste. An argument bubbles to the surface that is and is not about how much garlic the recipe requires. It is the same argument we have been having for the past 10 years. It is an argument about expectations.

When David and I were first dating, we once walked home from town in a rainstorm. We took off our shoes and splashed in muddy puddles. We held hands impervious to the damp and the cold. We plotted our future. David was going to change the world. I was going to support him.

I was going to do such amazing things./I was going to simply stand quiet beside you? Both of us are incredulous.

Recently, we bought a house. A home is something we always dreamed we would make together. I am determined to be the one to paint the cabinets in our kitchen. I remind David about how I had to spend an entire day re-sanding the drips he left when he primed. I tell him that I do not trust that he can make the kitchen look the way I envisioned. I tell David that I do not want him to help me paint. He simply shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head, and moves to stand on the periphery. On the last cabinet, I make a huge mistake. I slap my paintbrush down. I am frustrated. David makes a joke about my perfectionism. He makes a joke that is really a gentle observation about us both. This is the shift. We are aware of what is happening. We hug each other in the kitchen. We lean our bodies against the wrecked cabinet. I am struck by the courage it takes for two people to love each other.

When my husband and I jumped those muddy puddles, we were different people. We were just kids. David was confident. I was diminutive. David had dreams. I was content to follow. We have evolved outside of those roles in the 14 years that we have been together. Some of our expectations, of what our life together would be, have not caught up to the adult versions of what we are. I believe the adult version of us has the potential to be better.

Let’s go back to the idea of rain. Gently. Gently. Everything is always falling.

We pull on raincoats and boots. We ignore the umbrellas. We dive in and out of raindrops as we race towards the car. My family drives across town in a storm to find the perfect pencil. David wants to draw pictures. He is at the wheel. I sit comfortably next to him. I am content in the passenger seat with a novel in my hand. There is laughter, and the sweet buzz my children naturally make. My son wants to know what colors combine to make his favorite. He wants to hold orange like a tiny fire in his hand. I tell him red and yellow. I make a mental note to buy him a book about Prometheus. My daughter stares out of her window, grateful. I lean my body towards her to listen. She whispers and I can only nod my head overwhelmed.  She says, Thank you, rain, for falling.

Marriage is hard. That is such a simple statement. A true statement. Sometimes marriage is too hard and a couple realizes that they need to walk away. I think that is incredibly brave. I can not imagine how hard it would be. I wonder how many of you have ever wondered if that couple might be you? Maybe you thought it in your head when disappointment built, or aloud in arguments where you strike out to hurt. If so, you are not alone.

I met my husband while in college. We started talking at a dorm room party. We have not stopped talking since that night. We moved in together within six months. We were young and relatively poor college kids, rolling up quarters to buy gas and the cigarettes we smoked back then. We laid on the rooftop. I use to ask him, What if?

What if a genie said he would grant you every wish you had, but it would mean that I had to lose a leg or be horribly disfigured? Would you do it?

Inside a silly game, we both knew what I was asking. There were things that made me afraid. What if you hurt me? What if you lie? What if you break my heart? What if I break yours? I wanted protection against the inevitable.

This year, my husband and I will be married for 10 years, together for over 14. In this space of time, I have broken my husband’s heart in ways both small and large.

Some would say that I am not an easy woman to love. I have thrown around the word divorce as a weapon. I have let my anxiety get in the way of my logic. I have pushed away my husband’s need for the simple intimacy of having me, his partner, look him square in the eyes. I have spent hours on the internet engaging with others when I should have been engaging with my husband. I have even wondered, in the very darkest of moments, if Dave was truly the one. If you knew my husband, what we have together, you would know that this is the most egregious fault. I am not proud.

14 years together. We are not poor. The roof is over our heads. The ground is under our feet. We construct and deconstruct our daily boundaries. We ask questions. We no longer play, outright, the game of, What if? Instead, we live it.

What can we do to make sure our children grow up healthy? If we buy the new house will it be something to make us happy, or a burden we can not afford? What are all the ways we can ask forgiveness for how we hurt each other? If we evolve separately, let us promise to remember that we love under the exact same stars?

I think that what and If might be what constitute a marriage. My marriage has been a series of what and if. It has also been about, Why? I used to constantly ask why does my husband stay with such a difficult woman? Why does he continue to love me so faithfully when I have made so many mistakes? Knowing Dave, he will answer for himself. He will come here and he will say sweet things because he is good and kind and whole in ways that I admire. I am lucky that way.

I do not know if we can ever truly explain, why. Sometimes we just are.

When my husband and I first met, I was unsure and insecure. For a long time, I thought that David saved me from myself, my loneliness, my pain. I have learned that another person can not fix the cracks, the fissures of self. I can take credit for that all on my own, even if I am still a work in progress.

There was a time when I could not see past all that David did for me, to realize that I do for him too. I note with pleasure the absence of space when my hand reaches out to find his. I am a really good listener. I fill our house with goofy laughter. I burn toast with grace. I mother with love and good intent, always, his two children. I am a devoted wife.

I am also a reflective enough wife to know that i have been selfish. Finding myself should not be about dismissing the person that I love. This is what I hope to be forgiven for.

My husband and I are beautifully bound. We fail in a million different ways on a daily basis. But add us up to sum, and we make it work in all the ways that count.

David, I love you. Then. Now. Always.

I’ve been reading books about raising children with low impulse control. These books are written by important sounding people with advanced degrees attached to their names. They all say the same thing. Nothing is as crucial as supporting your child’s self-esteem. Self-Esteem is written in bold print, italics, dotted with a million gold stars. You can read the cautionary foot-notes which forewarn of what will happen to your children if you do not bolster their fragile sense of self at every turn. Drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling debts, burglary, prostitution. Your son or daughter will end up living in a cardboard box, somewhere, with nothing but a hungry pack of alley cats to keep him or her company. These “how-to” books write it all out like parenting is an equation. X equals the amount of hugs a child gets divided by the time that mommy spent blogging. Between the pages of these books, I do not add up.

Still, I think about these books while I struggle to get my son to calm down and he keeps spitting repeatedly in my face. Keep your voice calm. Set practical limits. These guidelines I try to remember while I take a boot to the chin, or when J’s angry legs and arms fly like whirligigs across the kitchen.

I do not always stay calm. Sometimes I scream. Sometimes I keep screaming. Sometimes I can not stop, even after my voice has gone quiet. I continue shouting in my head. Enough! Enough! Enough! The books do not recommend this as an effective parenting strategy. 


By the end of some nights, I am exhausted. Still, I tuck J into the bed in his new room. He tangles his fingers into my hair. I bury the tip of my nose into his neck. I breathe in.

Me: Are you excited for Christmas, little man?

J: I don’t think Santa is gonna bring me anything for Christmas, Momma?

Me: Of course he is, baby. What makes you think he won’t?

J: I’m a bad kid.

****

Yesterday I had a panic attack. I was driving home from work and my gaslight came on. This happened numerous times before. I am not always good with the details. I lose my cell phone and my keys on a weekly basis. I forget to feed the cat. My children go too long between haircuts. Luckily, I had my wallet. I had enough fuel to exit the highway and find a gas station. I HAD plenty of gas. Stuck, the first car at a light in front of a long line of rush hour traffic. I convinced myself that my car was going to stall. My heart raced. My chest got tight. By the time the light turned green and my car lurched forward, I was hyperventilating. For about a mile long stretch of road, I struggled to maintain the wheel and my composure. My heart slammed against my ribcage like a death match. I pulled into the gas station and handed the attendant my credit card with shaking hands. I rolled up the window while he fueled my tank. I sobbed uncontrollably.

I am fucking this whole parenting thing up? What if J grows up to hate himself? It will all be my fault.

I call my husband. I need someone to talk me down.

You are not fucking things up. You are a good Mom, Kel. Besides, name one person you know who grew up without self-esteem issues.

What my husband says makes me pause. I can’t think of even one person. Not sure what that says about the company I keep, but, somehow the fact that every single person I know has struggled to define him or herself, to feel good about him or herself, to be whole, is comforting.

I get angry sometimes that things can be so hard for J and by extension for me. I never wanted to be the mother who had to meet with the director of special education to have her son tested for behavioral issues, but I am. I never wanted to have a son that can be so difficult to parent that some nights after he has kicked and screamed for so long I am certain my own resolve will break just like the toys he has thrown across the room in rage. Many nights I go and simply collapse on my own bed after my boy falls asleep in his. But, this is who I am. This is who we are together. J and Me.

I love you Momma. I love you a million, a million, a million…..TEN!

J hugs me and his soft blue pajamas brush up against my arms and cheeks. We call these pajamas his Whammer Jammers. They have scattered robots of all sizes and shapes racing up and down his legs. J’s pajamas remind me of when he was just a year old. I used to pretend to be a robot. I even used a robot voice. Nine months pregnant with M, I would chase J around the living room with my arms outstretched while he ran like a Sunday drunk on his wobbly legs to allude me. He ran as fast as his small body would propel him, trying but not really wanting to escape. Each time I caught him, I kissed him on the cheeks. I tickled his neck. I threatened to never let him go. I meant it.

I love you too, J. I love you a million times…. forever.

Please let that be enough.