When last we spoke (a mostly one-sided conversation, as can often be the case with me) I shared some of my less admirable moments as a husband and father. As much as I am sure we’d all love to go back and relive my greatest failures and short-comings I find it more appropriate that we move on to a little more of the story that made up our journey together as a family. I do need to remind you that the next part of the story is where things start to get slightly more… interesting. We still live in the town where many of these stories occurred and still have occasional contact with some of the major players in them, so I encourage you to do your best to look past what you may deem bad behavior and decisions and realize that all parties involved were struggling to find answers. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about a messy life it’s that it affects everyone.
In October of 2006 Andrew and Joel were diagnosed with moderate to severe autism. In November 2006 Hannah’s brother and his wife moved back to MO to pursue ministry again and somewhere in that time frame Hannah stumbled upon the answer to all our problems, or so we thought. I love my wife more than I could ever express, but she is not the most technologically savvy person I’ve ever known. She can, however, waste hours upon hours on the internet with all the ease and professionalism of a reclusive hacker. She is also very motivated. Instead of researching video games and computers (like her loser husband) she dedicated her time to her sons and the disease that affected all our lives so dramatically.
She found program after program and study after study. Each one contradicted the three before and was discredited in turn by the few following. The information surrounding autism; its causes and treatments, was a mess, and it still is. We didn’t know that. We devoured each new piece of information as if it was the long needed sustenance that would keep us alive for one more day. We were so hungry for answers, for someone to come alongside of us and share our burden that we were nothing short of desperate. Eventually our desperation led us to a program that claimed to wholly and completely cure autism. Their origin and stories were so inspiring. Their words were so encouraging. The methodology seemed to be in line with our parenting methods and philosophies. It seemed like we had found the answers we hadn’t known to be searching for.
There was, however, a large problem that we faced. The program was located in New England, so we had to travel. And it was expensive. Very expensive. For Hannah and I both to travel to and from the program, pay tuition, lodging, meals, etc we faced a seemingly insurmountable goal of over $10,000 dollars. Considering the church I was on staff at only paid us $12,000 a year it looked like our dreams were doomed to failure. The program directors encouraged fund-raising, but given our experience just a year earlier at the parachurch organization in east Tennessee it seemed bad form to run back to everyone we knew and beg them for money again. After visiting with the program staff on several occasions, we discovered that we qualified for their poor-folk program and were given a 50% scholarship on tuition. This brought the total cost to around $7,000, but that was still out of our reach. We were then introduced to a local program that provides yearly grants for families with special needs. After some creative wording by the local program director we qualified for an additional $5,000. With that money it brought the total cost down to $2,000. It was in that final stage that I surrendered to pure and utter idiocy and decided that the rest of the trip could just find its funding in that nifty little free money source called a credit card. We had lived the first 5 years of our marriage debt free and intended to stay that way. After all, we could pay off $2,000 within a few months right? Wrong. I just paid off that trip this past month (April of 2011). Regardless of how poor my decisions were in making the finances a reality, we were finally fully funded to go spend a week learning about how to cure autism.
We were scheduled to attend the week long program in late February of 2007 which also happened to be the week of our fifth wedding anniversary. After a little creative research and much prodding on the part of my wife we realized that we were going to be only a few hours from Niagara Falls. Through the grace of God we were able to plan several days together away from all the craziness of our lives at home to enjoy one another as husband and wife and celebrate our time together. As many times as I have looked back on our trip to New England with regret and frustration for what we encountered at the program (more on that next time…. moron…. strangely appropriate…) I know that we were in desperate need of that time together huddled up in the frozen north on the Canada side of the falls (it is SO much better than the US side) just taking a moment to find joy in our marriage again. Sometimes it’s hard for even me to remember that at this point we were only 24 and 25. We had been married 5 years and had twin 2 ½ year old boys with severe autism and an exceptional 4 year old little boy at home waiting on us. I have no explanation for how we survived except the grace and goodness of our Lord.
The week that followed was an experience I will never forget and one I do not have time to share right now. Until next time…
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