When I was in Fifth Grade and we finished our work early, we could look at various books or work on projects in the classroom by ourselves. I like to look at The Best of Life, the old Life Magazine photo compilation. There were a lot of photos I looked at many times, but one… Continue reading The Best of Life
Tag: special needs child
Open House
Now that it’s the first week of July, we are almost practically about to be on the cusp of the first anniversary of Sarah’s death on August 18th of last year. It seems like things are getting more depressing in some ways the closer we get to the anniversary, which makes me think of the… Continue reading Open House
Walk of Shame
I realize yesterday’s post was dark and fairly ghoulish. I’m sorry to have offended or crossed the boundaries of good taste. Sometimes I do feel very bad about myself. I guess I tend to think that if Sarah died at 16, that’s just a prima facie case (as we say in the law) that we… Continue reading Walk of Shame
Balance
It’s 3:16, I’m up, and mulling. The dog woke me up, but I’ve been waking her up early so much I can’t really blame her. I was having a dream about being in a car rolling down our street with the emergency brake not working. (Do people even use emergency brakes anymore? Do they come… Continue reading Balance
Viactiv
Max put some videos on my computer that he had of Sarah. They are mostly of her as a very small child. Our neurogeneticist used to ask for videos sometimes of Sarah doing this or that thing, so he could present Sarah at grand rounds at Kennedy-Krieger. We were not big camera and video parents.… Continue reading Viactiv
Talks
Since I got back from my road trip, Max and I have been talking more, hanging out more, and trying to connect more. We had a couple of intense telephone conversations while I was on the road, and I registered some issues with him that have been bothering me. Like his tendency to tell me… Continue reading Talks
Job History
Going back to see some of Sarah’s old schools made me remember when she was very small and she wanted to be a librarian, a scientist, or a firefighter. She also wanted to be a teacher for a while. During Sarah’s very last year of school there was a concerning, confusing incident with the librarian… Continue reading Job History
Preschool
Sarah lost a lot of little skills very incrementally, and we would sometimes look at photos of her and say things like “Remember when she could hold a book in her hand?” “Remember when she sat up straight when she was doing therapeutic horsebackriding?” There was no particular moment she would lose the skill. It… Continue reading Preschool
Case Study
I guess the flip side of being empathetic is being oversensitive. I really don’t like using that word, as I have expressed previously, since people are as sensitive as they happen to be. But our triggers that come from past trauma aren’t always rational or productive. Sometimes they hold us back from getting the good… Continue reading Case Study
Nurseling
This is the last pictue I ever took of Sarah. I may have posted it before; it’s the icon for the blog anyway. I took it on August 11, 2022 and Sarah died on August 18. I love looking at pictures of Sarah growing up, seeing how her face and hair changed. When she was… Continue reading Nurseling
The First Year Without Sarah 