Possibilities

Micah and I sit beside each other in chairs along the wall in the bright, sunny middle school office. The friendly young counselor peeks her head around the hallway and invites us into her private space where we sit at a small round table. I’ve become acquainted with her during the last three years. In fact, I’ve gotten to know so many of the staff as I’ve waited almost every day for Micah’s special education teacher or para to come get him or bring him to me. He’s never taken the school bus because we live out too far, so I’ve always driven him myself. This, his 8^th grade year, feels like a long goodbye.

Today we are going to find out about possibilities for his first year of high school which begins next fall. The counselor brings up core classes first and explains that all of them (math, science, English, history) will be taught in the resource room by his case manager. “I get that he needs to be with her for Math and English,” I say, “but isn’t it possible for him to be mainstreamed for history and science?” She explains that that’s just how it is at this school, at least that’s how they start. She tells me I can bring it up at Micah’s IEP/transition meeting later this spring, that it’s always good to advocate. “Oh,” I assure her, “I will definitely bring it up.”

I don’t press her anymore, so she moves on to electives. We both take turns trying to coax Micah into the conversation. “Micah, there are theater arts classes you can take. Would you like that?” He looks at her for a split second but says nothing. It’s hard to break the spell that the large hourglass on the table has on him; he turns it up and down, mesmerized by the red gel that swirls inside of it. It appears that he couldn’t care less about the possibilities high school holds for him. But I know that’s not really true.

“Micah, this is great. You love acting and theater. And there’s a musical production you can audition for in the fall. Would you like that?” I make my own attempt at drawing him in.

“Yeah,” he finally says, with a twinkle I can see in his eyes, his smile hidden beneath the grey mask he is wearing.

“Wonderful,” the counselor says. “I can put him in theater the first semester. Micah, do you like FACS (family and consumer science) classes? You know, where you would do a lot of cooking and sewing. It also involves working on life skills.” Then she looks at me. “He can take these classes throughout high school to help prepare him for living on his own.”

“I really like sewing,” Micah’s back with us, now interested in helping us plan.

Now it’s my turn to be disengaged. I’m stuck on her comment about “living on his own.” Todd and I have talked about this many times. We’ve played with different scenarios and have always concluded that Micah will always live with us. If he just had autism, it might be different. If he just had Type 1 Diabetes, it wouldn’t be an issue. But the combination makes it very difficult to just say that yes, he will grow up and move away from us. Is there a soul out there who would love him the way we do, who would watch over his blood sugar as we do? I know that it might be too soon to rule out Micah’s independence, but today it still feels like we’d be playing Russian roulette…a possibility I cannot yet accept.