A Very Strange Anniversary

I have always been a "date person" -- if something significant happens, I remember the date -- it's been this way for as long as I can remember.

October 7, 1989 was the day my family blew up.....

December 16, 1991 was the day I met my biological mother, and sister and brother ....

June 15, 1996 was the day some friends got married and I officially started "dating" my husband

November 28, 1996 was the day he proposed....

September 20, 1997 was the day he married me.....

April 25, 1999 was the day I found out I was going to have a Y2K baby....

October 13, 2007 was the day I lost my daddy

You get the picture

Well, today is one of those strange anniversaries - one I have very mixed feelings about.

On March 3, 2010, it was a Wednesday and someone faxed us the evaluation they had completed on John Brady.

And though I had fully anticipated what the bottom of the page would say, it still felt like a kick in the stomach when it said: 1. Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (Atypical Autism vs. Asperger's).........

it wasn't the only diagnosis on the page, but it was the one that brought the strangest mix of thoughts and emotions.

I had suspected it and begged for a full evaluation for quite some time - but a part of me still hoped I was wrong.

I did the first thing I could think to do.

I called my momma -- I couldn't say anything. I just needed someone to listen to me cry for a minute.

It was a Wednesday - so as our usual, we headed to church. But we never made it into the sanctuary -- Yancey had the full evaluation and had made two copies. We sat in the Guest Reception room and read it together. It was a hard read.

But before we left the room we looked at one another and said - Where do we go from here?

It was a relief for us since we'd been BEGGING for help for our family for so long.

And it was a relief to now have a diagnosis and somewhere to start.

But our road was far from ending.

So many positive things have come from all of this.

We felt such love from friends and family and strangers who participated in a fundraiser to help us send John Brady to a summer program at the local Autism Learning Center.

And that made such a HUGE difference in all of our lives.

We prayed and prayed and finally felt led to put him in public school --- this was a big deal for me as I homeschool our other two. but it was the best decision we could have made for him.

We've all come so far.

But he's come the farthest.

We still have struggles and setbacks and rough cycles --- but we are SO FAR from where we were one year ago today and I am so thankful and so blessed.

A very strange anniversary