In Search of Spectacular Destinations

I haven't been blogging even though I very much want to. There is so much going on and I feel a pull to write about it. But it's all so much, so big that I never know where to start and I never know what is mine to share and what is my sons. The truth is he is in crisis and the last two weeks have been the hardest time for all of us but especially him. He fell apart and had to be hospitalized and now we begin to try to help him rebuild everything.

I've mentioned many times the ups and downs with our school over the years but even when we don't see eye to eye I know they care deeply about our son and are committed to him 100%. We very much appreciate them and all of their efforts. With C's latest situation the school bore the brunt of the fall out the days leading up to the hospitalization. All the staff rallied, they did their absolute best. They cried for our boy and agonized over how to help, how to keep him safe.

Yesterday we had a school meeting. EVERYONE from his school team was there for almost 2 hours. Well, his teacher had to leave after 1.5 hours because we suddenly realized how much time had passed and there was no one to cover his class. During that meeting there was constant dialogue around how do we support C. What can we do to make him successful? What's reasonable to expect and how do we go about it? The Psychologist we now have from our children's centre was phenomenal and not once, NOT ONCE, did anyone around the table even begin to balk at the idea of C returning to school. In my field of work I have been to hundreds of school meetings. Many have become heated and adversarial over far less than what we were dealing with yesterday. Most schools, I almost want to say every other school, would have at least once said "but surely you can't expect us to be able manage him here???". But they didn't. Instead they brainstormed and eagerly sought possible solutions. They wondered aloud how to get me more support at home as he will not be able to manage more than a few minutes of school a day for the next while. They agreed to strategies that the Psychologist and I had thought were doubtful they would agree to. At one point there was a discussion of a pop up tent for C to use when he needed to get away. I tried not to looked visibly shocked when there was unanimous agreement on the strategy. Then I wept openly when after I vowed to go out that very night and pick one up (all the while trying to figure out how I could really make that happen with all that was on my plate) and the Acting Principal (this poor man who is filling in for a few weeks and probably never expected to deal with this) piped in with "I will go tonight and get one - you have enough to do - let us help you".

There were some horribly difficult things discussed yesterday. Possibilities of what is happening to our son and what it could mean were briefly mentioned and left hanging in the air. No one wanting to discuss or speculate further. There was a lot of hope in the room but worry for him as well. As though we were all acknowledging the hard road that lies ahead and praying that for once the road might not be the hardest one but perhaps a long, windy one with a spectacular destination at the end.