(Note: This was originally published in the September 2023 DFWChild Special Needs newsletter.)
I have measured all but seven of my 45 trips around the sun in “school years.” Whether it’s been as a student, teacher and/or parent, most years begin, at least to me, with the first day of school. I classify the weeks that span between school’s start and New Year’s Eve as “Fall,” and even though the weather here in north Texas remains agonizingly hot, I view this season the way F. Scott Fitzgerald describes it in The Great Gatsby: “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” I guess I feel especially inspired by the literary greats because it is a new season for me: after staying home with my children for the past nine years, I’m returning to work as a high school English teacher. It may be hotter than Hades outside, but as I meet my colleagues, dress up in new clothing, and enjoy fresh school supplies of my own, I love the undeniable energy that comes from a fresh, crisp start.
I realize this probably sounds obnoxiously positive, so believe me – I know new school years aren’t always so stellar. For our kids with special needs, to whom routines are sacred, the changes wrought by new buildings, classrooms, teachers, paras, and/or classmates can feel a whole lot more like what Shakespeare’s Richard III called “the winter of our discontent.” My son with autism has school years when it takes him until November to get into the groove of things… only to have that groove wrecked by the interruption of Thanksgiving break. He’ll groove again in the first weeks of December, but the winter break takes him – and our whole family – back to square one. I know it can exhaust the entire household when one child struggles so mightily.
I want to encourage you, dear reader, if this new season finds you weary, that in the 10-plus school years of parenting my special needs child, we have survived 100% of the rough seasons. Despite periods of extreme hardship, our boy has blossomed into a freshman who walks the halls of a 5-A high school, handling new teachers, friends, and expectations with confidence. He loves all of it. Pablo Neruda mused that “you can cut all the flowers but you cannot stop spring from coming.” I know what it feels like to experience hope for a mere moment before its bloom is clipped short, when you’ve barely had a chance to admire the petals and savor the scent. But experience has shown me this truth: even when your school year bouquet looks more like a bunch weeds, beauty can and will emerge.
That’s the great thing about life’s seasons: they’re cyclical. Temperatures rise, but they will also fall. Plants die, but they will grow anew. It’s inevitable that our spirits and moods will cycle through highs and lows, and back again. I know there are seasons of struggle that last far longer than seems fair. My hope for us all in each season this school year brings is that we stay stubborn in remembering that the sun will rise again. Literary great Albert Camus put it this way: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
No matter what this school year throws your way, remember: you, too, are a force of nature. You’re invincible, and you’ve got this.
