Flashback

It doesn’t happen as often anymore, but when it does, it hits me like a flashback — sudden, sharp, and powerful. One second I’m standing in the foyer waiting for Jack to come downstairs for our nightly drive, and the next I’m pulled straight back to when he was five.

Non verbal.

Frustrated.

Hurting himself because he had no other way to communicate the storm inside him.

Not fully potty trained.

Unable to do any self care.

And me — already preparing myself to be his caregiver forever.

Ready to do it.

Ready to be whatever he needed.

But, I was scared.

Then the present snapped back into focus.

I heard his bedroom door click shut.

The lights flip off.

His footsteps on the stairs — that teenage saunter that says, “I’m here, but I’m not rushing.”

And then he appeared.

Freshly showered.

Smelling like the Old Spice Swagger set I bought him for Christmas.

Hair brushed.

Clothes chosen on his own.

A young man who has fought for every skill, every milestone, every inch of independence.

I must’ve had a weird look on my face — because he leaned in close and whispered:

“Ready?”

But it wasn’t really “ready?”

It was, “Are you okay?”

And all I could muster up to say was:

“I’m ready. I’ll always be ready.”

Because I am.

For him.

For the journey.

For the moments that remind me how far we’ve traveled from that frustrated little boy and that scared mom who didn’t know what the future would look like.

He is strong & brave.

And I am strong & brave, because of him.

Some nights, the victories are loud.

Tonight, it was just a quiet foyer, a teenage boy who smells like Swagger, and a mother who realized — again — that miracles don’t always arrive in big moments.

Sometimes they walk down the stairs.

#Neurodiversity