This post is going to be a little bit tricky for me. I aim to be honest but sometimes I do worry, like many do, what people will think when I am honest. I encourage anyone who may find themselves thinking something along the lines of, "She should be grateful!", to allow me grace and to know without a shadow of a doubt, that no one is more grateful than I am that Tess had made it to this milestone. That milestone?
Graduation. From High School.
WHAT?!?! How is it possible that she is already a Senior and gearing up to graduate???
We are so so proud of her and happy for her and excited for her. Trust me when I tell you that no one has worked harder to reach this moment in their lives than our Tessie Toodles. She has literally fought off death on multiple occasions and won. She has moved from her home for her education and, even though homesick and I'm sure nervous at first, she rolled through the doors of that new school and quickly showed them what she is made of and what she could do. She has had to prove herself time and time and time again to people who underestimated her; from teachers to therapists to doctors to, yes, even her own parents early on (that said, she has also had teachers and therapists who knew she was capable and smart and would expect that from her). Tess has constantly showed up to a life that has been trying to knock her back down only to Rocky up and prove to life that she is the Champ and will do it on her terms thankyouverymuch.
So why is this a tricky post to write, you may be wondering?
Well, even though all of the above is true and we are excited and proud and happy for her to be graduating, we are also dealing with feelings of sadness and even loss.
I have been seeing a therapist since we came very close to losing Tessie in the Spring of 2019 and she assures me that these feelings are totally normal because we are dealing with something call Ambiguous Loss which is when you have the feelings of grief and loss even though the person is still very much alive. Here is a link for anyone interested that gets into much more detail about Ambiguous Loss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguous_loss
We're mourning the things WE'RE missing out on. The relationship she would have had with her cousin who is also graduating this year, the fact that she will never leave home to go make a life of her own, even just the normal the pomp and circumstance that goes along with graduating. Every little detail has to be taken into consideration and thought about and prepared for. Will she have a seizure during something like graduation or the grand march? Should she be on stage the whole time or taken up to get her diploma? Who will push her wheelchair to march her in? And the grand march? A whole other planning session. And yes, it makes me sad. And yes, I'm managing that sadness and feelings of loss with tips and tricks from my therapist. And the one thing that she told me that has helped the most? To remember that two things can be true at the same time. I can be so sad and angry that this is not how it's supposed to be while also being so excited and grateful that Tess has reached this milestone. One does not negate the other. Allow room for both. It doesn't mean I love Tess less or am less proud of her to feel sad that her graduation will look and feel different than her sisters did.
And when I see the other moms on social media talking with excitement and a bit of sadness at their baby leaving the nest... that's a very lonely feeling. My baby will never leave. She has no future plans other than to be happy and hopefully healthy for as long as possible. I can't join in and relate to them on any level like I did when Blake and Ellie graduated. When her classmates parents were filling out scholarship forms and college applications with their kids, I was contacting a lawyer to make sure we had legal guardianship and conservatorship over Tess so we can keep her protected. It's just such a bazaar place to be in because it's not supposed to be this way.
It's a tough road to be on but it's not a bad road. And when Blake was doing school with Tessie yesterday, they were waiting to start speech therapy and Blake was using the talker to talk to Tess about graduation and how exciting it is and what will happen that day and then she asked Tess:
"How do you feel about graduating?".
Tess replied, "I feel proud of me."
I feel proud of me. Those five words were exactly the perspective I needed to have. Hers. She's not missing out. She's not sad. She's proud of herself.
How much more could we ask for?
