Crying in the Canned Goods Aisle

 

It’s true. I’ve done it. I’ve cried in the canned goods aisle at Target. Canned vegetables to be exact.

I’m used to receiving phone calls from my son’s school; it’s been happening for years. The calls have come from a teacher, behavior intervention teacher, case manager or administration. Sometimes they’ve been in the moment calls of distress about my child experiencing a crisis where attempts of self harm were happening. Sometimes they were calls during his breakdowns or episodes. And often they were calls about behavior ‘issues’. The common thread through all of the phone calls was this: they were always about the struggles of my son not conforming to ‘normal’ behavior for his age and they were never about the ‘good things’ he was doing.

Sometimes (or all of the times, in my case) when you’re a parent of a child with special needs, you hate these calls, just like you hate conferences (that’s a whole different post), because they both feel like a laundry list of all the things he does ‘wrong’ or is not good enough at. And you listen and wonder, does anyone see any good in him? Because there is SO MUCH GOOD in him. How come I’m not hearing about the good?

The calls I’d get while he was in crisis felt less jaded and just plain heart wrenching. I’d be 30 miles away at the office and get a call asking me to come right away because he was having a break down and was sobbing and thrashing, facedown under a weighted bean bag in the sensory room.

Any parent cringes a bit, if they get a call from their child’s school. But the difference is the calls from their child’s school are usually filled with conversation about minor things. The calls I’m getting have been weekly, if not daily. And they began to wrack me. So much so, that I’ve developed a visceral and anxious reaction when my phone rings and I read the name of his school on the caller ID. Immediately I feel my shoulders scrunch up in tension. My breathing quickens. My mind races. What now? Is he okay? Or are they calling to tell me again how my son doesn’t ‘measure up’ to their standards?

Understand this. No one has ever actually told me my son doesn’t measure up. But that is how the words feel when you hear over and over again, “He can’t sit still, he needs to be still. He won’t stop talking. He’s not focused. He’s taking his iPad out when he isn’t supposed to. He won’t sit down. He is humming while he is supposed to be working and it is disrupting others.” Blah. Blah. Blah

The bottom line is my child isn’t a traditional learner, but he attends a school in which the system teaches in a traditional way. Of course, he runs across teachers who understand his differences and gifts and are flexible with their instruction to him to better meet his needs.

But the overall feeling I get over the last several years of schooling is, ‘he is not good enough’. And this breaks my heart.

Last week, I was standing in the canned goods aisle at Target when my phone rang. I looked down and saw the name of his school flash on the screen. I started to panic. I could immediately feel the anxiety building in me, level by level, with each ring. I immediately started telling myself a story. What’s he in trouble for now? What silly thing are they on his case for this time? My hands fidgeted as I held the phone. I was frozen in the middle of the aisle, listening to it ring, wishing the call away. I decided to let it go to voicemail. I just didn’t have the stomach or courage to discuss one more ‘issue’.

A minute after the call stopped ringing, I received the voicemail notification. I pressed the voicemail button and lifted the phone to my ear, holding my breath.

Standing right there staring at the canned corn, I listened for a few moments, and then the tears started to fall. My hands were still shaking, but my heart began to fill with bittersweet joy.

It was his Global Studies teacher, Mr. A, calling to tell me what a great day my son had. They had been working on a unit on Mexico and unbeknownst to me, my son had brought in some pesos to share with the class. The teacher continued on to say how my sweet boy had been really going out of his way to be helpful. How he shared things even he didn’t know about Mexico and he closed it with, “You have wonderful boy, Heather.”

The voicemail was 36 seconds long. Thirty six seconds of this teacher’s day not only made my day, but my week. And it filled my heart so completely, that it left me speechless and crying in the canned goods aisle at Target.

As I continued to think about that call in the days that followed. It made me realize just how much work I have to do to retell the stories of those calls, in my head. This is one of the things I mentioned in my post last week about starting trauma  therapy. I’m learning to rewrite the script in my head that autoplays when I get phone calls from my son’s school. It is hard and intentional work.

And little does this teacher know, that his one positive, thankful, and appreciative call about my child is helping me steer a better course for myself. It is helping me define a new normal. And all it took was a mere 36 seconds out of his day.

I think I shall give him 36 seconds of my day and thank him for his kind words and the impact they had on me.

Although it’s highly unlikely that my words will leave him crying in the canned goods aisle at Target.