Here we are, my youngest son and me. It was as uneventful as it looks. We were waiting in the van for Daddy to come out of the grocery store. My buddy said he didn’t want to go in so he sat with Mommy. He did get anxious while we waited so I decided to distract him with one of his favorite activities, taking his picture. “Cheeeeese!!!” he said while sporting his best cheesy grin. Of course I didn’t like how I look in any of the photos. My hair has been falling out at breakneck speed lately. I also noticed his hair was getting a little long. I am glad his medication hasn’t been doing to his hair what my medication has done to mine. Anyway, he was overdue for his haircut. Although, he’s been doing better at getting a haircut, I thought I’d let him go a little longer before we’d give him one. Autism and haircuts don’t mix well at our house.

That’s how life is for us, things like a haircut that seem simple usually have a story behind it, like this photograph. What you don’t see in this photograph is how swollen and painful my knees were that day and how bad my shoulder hurt. My Rheumatoid Arthritis was causing me a lot of grief. The only other time I had left the house that week was to pick up my oldest son from school. By this time, I was anxious to find any reason to leave the house.

Leaving the house wasn’t what it used to be and I was wondering if I should apply for a handicap placard. You see my cutie in this photo has had a rough life. Here he is at the end of a very rough summer. He has been weaker than usual because his seizures had been increasing. He didn’t want to go in because he had a few seizures that day and he was weak and a bit tired. I wondered if I should get a placard for the times he may want to go in and a long walk to the store would be too hard for him. What about me? Some days I can barely make it down my hall to the bathroom but I worry because neither of us “look” handicap. I had a crazy vision where someone deciding to do their own sort of “justice” was yelling at me for parking in a handicap spot as I unload my kids since I may not give the world some sort of visual confirmation of our need for a placard. There is no membership card for a chronic illness club. I guess it’s best I wait. We’d be okay a while longer, I guess.  I try not to take the kids out alone, it’s too hard on my body. So I thought about another topic; how sad this summer was and how we really didn’t do anything fun. I apparently wasn’t being very positive on this day.

My thoughts were interrupted by my son spitting. Yes, he has a bad habit. I’m not surprised. He has autism and epilepsy, and I have Tuberous Sclerosis to thank for all of that. He does things to make his Mom squirm, like most kids do, it’s just a bit harder to convince him to give up a bad habit. I try to be as patient as I can because I know he has a lot going on. I am not the master of patience yet, but I was getting a lot of practice in the parking lot this day.

He wasn’t interested in much that evening, including his iPad. When we are waiting for a long stretch I usually play a movie for the kids. We got this van specifically for the DVD players. Unfortunately they stopped working. Not great news for me. It’s helpful for times like these when I am at the receiving end of spit. There would be no way we’d be able to fix the DVD system so I tried not to think about it. It would just make me mad. I pulled out the next best thing to the DVD players, my phone. Technology can sometimes be grand and seeing himself on my phone is always grand for him. We took our picture together. We are two peas in a pod, he and I….

The course of my disease is eerily mirroring the one he has already taken. He took a medication that required eye exams every three months to check for vision loss. I am supposed to do the same but we don’t have vision insurance, so I am hoping for the best. He moved on to another medication after that one failed. It is used to treat cancer. He has to have labs done every three months to make sure the rest of his body is okay with the medication. I’m right behind him with Methotrexate and looking to see if I can start, and most importantly afford, to continue to take it after the first of the year. With all of the gloomy thoughts, I’m thankful his smile can put a smile on my face.

I flipped through the photos we took and wondered if my face looked a bit more round than usual. I had been on predisone for a while and I’d rather blame the medication for any noticeable fullness in my face instead of my late night snacking. I noticed how tiny my son looks in the picture. We were at the store so his Daddy could go in to buy him his breakfast shakes. It’s the only thing he will consume consistently. We buy them to supplement his diet. It isn’t cheap but it helps him maintain his weight.

That reminded me to check our bank account. “I hope there is enough in there to buy what he needs,” I thought. I sighed and took a long look at the summer sun. It will be sad to see it go. I wished we both felt good enough to enjoy it. We did miss a lot but we do have this picture together. We can certainly look the part but rarely does anyone really know what’s behind a photo.

There is usually a story behind our photos, as there are stories behind many things in our life that no one knows about. I’m smiling but I am always thinking about our health, money, the future, and sometimes regret. I try not to be negative but it’s hard not to be on occasion. The great thing is that he can always find a way to remind me how to be happy despite the flurry of thoughts that often bring my spirits down. It’s as simple for him as taking a photo with his very best smile. Although it won’t be that easy for me, I am certainly going to give it a try. Someday we may look back at this photograph among others, and I want him to know there was a genuine smile on my face, and he was one of the reasons why. I am blessed for every last moment, even uneventful ones like this time when he and I can take a moment, forget our troubles, and smile. “Cheeeeese!!!”

*d*