Little Victories

Every Wednesday night I take my son and daughter to church to participate in planned activities for the evening.  For my daughter it's usually some sort of craft or food or something, for my son it's Boy Scouts or a combined activity in which the young men and young women both participate, such as volleyball.  There is also a Cub Scout troop that meets at our church on Wednesdays. Logan is nine.  He is old enough to be in Cub Scouts.

Logan knows that he is different.  That is something that a lot of people don't realize.  He knows that he's different, and he is painfully aware of and sensitive to being left out of anything.  In the past I have tried to take him to Cub Scouts with little success.  We would arrive at the church and he would either want to hang out in the janitor's closet and look at the vacuum cleaners, or run around and be disruptive.  This would necessitate a quick trip home to drop him back off with his dad, which would also trigger a temper tantrum.  In short, it was more trouble than it was worth.

This last Wednesday we got ready to go and Logan said, "I want to come."  I told him no, explained that he couldn't and why he couldn't but he became more and more upset.  He got upset to the point that he was crying and exclaiming plaintively, "I want to come!  I want to come!"  In other words, "Don't leave me behind.  I want to be like everyone else."

It broke my heart and I couldn't say no.

So Logan put on a Cub Scout shirt and we went.  I fully anticipated having to bring him home again that evening, but that didn't happen.

The Cub Scout leaders turned out to be a sweet couple that had raised a child on the spectrum.  Their son, a really cool, sweet guy, just earned his Eagle Scout. I tentatively peered into the doorway and they ushered Logan in, shooed me away and said, "It will be fine.  We'll make it work."

That night, Logan stayed.  He participated in all the activities.  He earned five or six beads and was voted Scout of the day.  Things that any normal nine year old can do, but for him was unprecedented.  It was amazing and at the same time, shaming.  I should have tried harder to include him. I sometimes feel like there is so much about my son that I still don't know, and he surprises me all the time.  He wasn't ready before.  But that night, he was.

That night I called my mother and told her all about what had happened.  I cautioned her.  "I'm not getting my hopes up; next time he may not want to go at all." And she said something so simple and so profound,

"We have to celebrate the little victories when they come."

A truth to carry with you, into the spectrum and throughout life itself.