The tree - among other things

I’m trying to comprehend just why I am so sad as of late. I am surrounded by such beauty.

Case in point: the tree.

I love this tree and each year I pose with the kids and the tree as it blooms. Last year, we had horrid torrential winds and the dear tree lost its flowers before the yearly photos were taken. Yesterday was a gorgeous day, albeit a day where rain was forecast at 80%. Morning rain and afternoon glory. All the glory that spring is supposed to bring.

Isaac and I had our yearly tree photos. Elliot stayed inside. Elliot likes it inside. He is safe inside and I think the association of going anywhere is analogous to going to the doctor / hospital / emergency room is present. In his brain, the association, the sad association, exists. He now throws fits when we get in the car, when we step outside, when we go to grandma’s for Easter. Again, I go back to autistic tendencies. Perhaps to social anxiety disorder. It is not people he is afraid of; it is places. Just as long as people come to us, in our home, he’s okay. He hugs, he maintains eye contact, he plays, he approaches, he loves…anyone who comes HERE. But, step out of the safe zone and all hell breaks loose. I cannot push him in the stroller at the grocery. I must hold him. I had to hold him most of the day on Easter. Heaven forbid that I would have attempted Mass.

So, the sadness. I’m scared and sad for my boy. His surgery approaches. His life of just over two and one half years has consisted of surgery, of procedure, of doctors now who say find another group because your mother is “difficult.”

Will my life now be full of people who find me to be difficult?

Difficult because I advocate for my son who is now so petrified of the world that he cannot step out of our box; my boy who cannot even fathom to enjoy the tree in all of its splendor?

Indeed, I am surrounded by beauty. But, now I struggle to enjoy it for what it is because a part of me, my beloved Elliot, cannot.

I need to help him. I have vowed to help him. I am on this earth to help him. I keep saying that “if you don’t fall down, you cannot get up.”

I suppose I am sad because we keep falling down. “Up” has to be somewhere in the distance.