When to Let Go and When to Hold on
The summer after I turned eight, my mother took me to get my ears pierced at Claire’s in the mall. It was right in the middle of the second set of my brother’s third tennis match of the day. It was July. It was hot. I was bored (and so was she, I think.) We needed an escape. So my dad stayed with my brother for moral support and Mom and I jumped in the Grand Am, headed for the mall.
To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted my ears pierced, but I would have done almost anything for some air conditioning. Goosebumps popped up on my arms from the chill as I hopped up into the tall seat next to the plastic display of earrings and let the clerk, barely a teenager, mark my ears with a purple permanent pen to get the holes just right. Then, before I could even take a breath, she help the piercing gun to my ear and wham! The pain was astonishing and quick. The slow-burning throb came seconds later. I gasped and teared up. My mom smiled like I’d just crossed a milestone, but all I could think about was that I still had one ear to go. Except, now that I knew what was coming, it made it so much worse. I did it though and returned to the tennis tournament with aqua studs in my stinging ears and a bag of cinnamon sugar pretzel bites from Auntie Anne’s as a reward for being brave. However, when I took my daughter to get her ears pierced this year, I recruited two employees to wield the ear guns at the same time. To minimize the trauma, we did it all in one go.
Charlie, my eldest, will be entering middle school next fall, which means I have exactly one year to hyperventilate and over-think every detail of the transition. That’s a long time to wait for the sting. Because he has cerebral palsy and communicates mostly through his speaking device, I don’t always know how his day at school has gone or if he was especially sad or happy or what funny thing someone did in class. But I’ve developed a system with his elementary school teachers and aides and it is enough. I do not have this system in place at the local middle school. I do not know if they will even approve of my system, or care. Deep breaths.
As summer turns to fall and he enters his fifth grade year, I am reminding myself that we’ve been through this before. He was once a pre-schooler who made it to elementary school. He was once the new kid on the bus. I was once the parent at the “Boo Hoo Kindergarten Breakfast” and we have both survived, thrived even, as the years passed.
I wish these growing pains with Charlie could be like my daughter’s ear-piercing experience, over and done all at once. But that’s not how life works. It’s little bursts of pain as you figure out when to let go and when to hold on. It’s letting him roll himself down a new hall and making myself follow three steps behind. It’s trusting that the new people in his life will become smitten with him as every single person tends to do who is drawn into his orbit. It’s also trusting that if they don’t, he will be just fine.
In the end, he will be okay and so will I. When he comes home from that first day of middle school, I will look at him much like my mom looked at me, like he crossed a milestone. Then I probably take us both out for treats to help soothe my own stinging heart. Deep breaths.
Jamie Sumner is a special needs mom and author.
Jamie-Sumner.com
Author of the middle-grade novels:
