Seven Years

Seven years. It’s been seven years since I sat in a room where four different doctors told me and Matt that our son had autism.

Hudson sat playing, blissfully unaware of what was being said. To be honest I don’t even remember what was said. After I heard the words “we believe your son aligns with traits associated with autism” I stopped listening. The doctors continued to talk but to me they sounded like they were underwater talking, or like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

I tried to pay attention and listen but all I could think about was my sweet boy and this uncertain future ahead of him. I tried to ask questions, would he regress further, would he gain more words… each question met with a “we’re not really sure…”

The ride home was particularly quiet. Hudson slept in the backseat while Matt and I were in a fog. The only sounds we heard were a few sniffles between the two of us.

When we got home we were still in a fog. I felt paralyzed. I needed to cook dinner, but I couldn’t. Friends texted and asked how the appointment went and I couldn’t answer them. It’s strange because while we knew the probability of Hudson having autism was high, we told ourselves he was neurotypical, but deep down we knew the truth and yet it still felt like a shock to hear it out loud.

I finally let it all out when my mom came over and sat with me. She hugged me and I sat and cried in her lap like I was a little girl again.

Although I don’t remember much of what the doctors said to me after revealing his diagnosis, I do remember one thing very clearly. They told Matt and I that we were the perfect parents for Hudson and they were confident we would do the best to help him. I scoffed and responded with “you must say that to everyone” and she said “no, I really don’t.”

Tonight at dinner, Hudson sat next to me and talked my ear off about strange animals. I made sure to hug him tight and told him how much I loved him. It hasn’t been the easiest seven years and we’re certainly not perfect parents, but I do wish I could take the moment of us tonight at dinner and show it to myself seven years ago and let her know it was all going to be okay.

The Swim Meet

Yesterday, Hudson participated in his first ever 3rd-4th grade swim meet. Students from each grade level signed up to compete in various swimming events.

Hudson is diagnosed with Level 2 Autism Spectrum Disorder, and he has many triggers. He is particularly triggered by waiting in lines or for his turn at something, and by competition. His need to win and be the best is so severe that he has 1:1 adaptive PE in his IEP. This means that most days in PE he works alone with the PE instructor. His anxiety over not winning a challenge or a game can be so crippling that it sends him into a full-blown meltdown.

He had played two seasons in a non-competitive youth soccer league when he was younger. And while he was great at cheering teammates on, he would collapse in a screaming pile on the grass when he missed a shot or someone ran faster than him.

So when we heard that he had signed up to compete with his class, we prepared ourselves for the worst.

The pool house was hot and loud, filled with the echoing sounds of kids and parents alike, with no open seats on either side. There were twelve different events that would take more than 90 minutes to complete, and the kids had been in the pool house for several minutes before the event began. Hudson’s event was next to last.

When Kayla and I arrived, we could tell that Hudson was already struggling. He was curled up in a ball at the end of bench, his head buried between his knees. His face was flushed red. His aide explained to Kayla that he was upset with having to wait for his turn to swim. Some classmates sat next to him, trying to comfort him as best as they could.

Eventually, Hudson’s OT and Kayla took him to a dry erase board in the back corner where he used markers to draw his favorite sharks. His teacher had brought over his headphones, which helped lessen the loud sounds. This distraction worked for awhile, but Hudson soon found himself in a pile on the floor, once again triggered and upset. And again, his classmates came to sit with him, which melted my heart. After several more minutes of this, Hudson’s OT took him out of the pool house and into the hallway.

When I saw this, my heart sank and I began wondering if his day would end without his swimming. I was starting to prepare myself for the ride home, and for how triggered he would be the rest of the day.

But with two events to go until his, Hudson returned to the bench and seemed ready to go.

Hudson took his position in line, waiting patiently for his leg of the relay race. He was the anchor. He knelt down at the pool’s edge to help his teammates climb out of the water. When it was his turn to go, he again waited patiently as he was helped into his life jacket.

And then, splash. Hudson was in the water and on his way. What happened next brought tears to my eyes.

As he swam in the most Hudson-esque way possible, doing what he called “shark and Spinosaurus spins”, every student on the bench began chanting.

“HUDSON! HUDSON! HUDSON!!”

The chants continued his entire swim down the lane. It was the kind of feel-good moment that you see on ESPN. Without knowing it, he had already ‘won’ just by conquering his triggers and getting in the water. But as he touched the edge, I looked at the other lanes and saw that the other kids were still swimming behind him.

Hudson’s team had won.

Navigating Loss

You've probably noticed that we haven't posted content in quite some time. It has taken me a long time to put together my thoughts for this letter, which is one of the longest I've ever written. The last post we wrote was a reflection on 'Special Person's Day' at Hudson's school last November, where his Grandma Sandy (Kayla's Mom) and I were part of many special individuals who were celebrated. One week later, our world was flipped upside down. And it wouldn't be the first time that everything would change.

One day after returning to work from a long Thanksgiving holiday, I was laid off as part of a reduction in business that impacted several others in the company.

I was given a meager severance package that would only sustain us through the end of the month. We were still recovering financially from another year of expensive projects on the house, so our parachute was small. Kayla and I immediately began to scale back on holiday shopping, focusing just on the boys, while also canceling any thoughts about a vacation in 2025. I had been with the company for nearly 7 years, and my income was roughly 60% of what we brought in each year.

Kayla and I agreed that we needed to hold off on telling the boys about my job loss until after the holidays. Hudson’s birthday has always been a triggering event that he obsesses over each year, and we didn’t want anything to tarnish his special day. We put on a brave front for the boys, cringing every time one of them pointed out something new that they wanted, or places that they wanted to go during winter break. I had worked remote since COVID, so the boys were used to my always being home. My working remote had been a blessing for us, as it allowed me to never miss a school meeting or function. I would get the boys off the bus every afternoon and had started taking Hudson to school in the morning. We were anxious about my finding another project management position in a field that suddenly had a tremendous amount of competition, particularly for remote work. Kayla was able to find comfort in talking to her Mom, as she reassured her over and over that everything would be ok.

We told the boys about my lay off between Christmas and New Year's. I'll never forget how Hudson erupted into tears, his anxiety overtaking him...

"YOU'LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER JOB AND WE'RE GOING TO BE POOR FOREVER!!"

Days later, we were dealt another terrible blow - one that was far worse than my loss of income. Kayla's Mom had suddenly passed away.

Grandma Sandy had always been a constant in Hudson and Finn's lives. She was Hudson's 'person' in the family outside of the house, and he and Finn always loved seeing her. She made every sporting event and school performance that she could. Each time she visited them, she would always bring a pack of cookies, toys, or clothes that she thought they would like, no matter how much we pushed back. Whenever we needed an ultra rare date night or a break from the kids, Grandma Sandy was almost always the first person that we called. The boys would be full of energy when she watched them, no doubt running her completely ragged in the process. But if she was exhausted from watching them, she'd never let it show.

When I lost my job, we were optimistic that we could lean on Sandy for help with the boys as I scheduled interviews. With each remote work position rejection that I received, the thought of my having to transition to fully in-office or hybrid work became more of a concerning reality. Kayla and I would spend our nights trying to plan out how often we might need her Mom to be here after school, or to come over long enough for us to attend meetings for Hudson.

Losing Sandy meant that we lost much more than a source of respite. The loss created a large void in our family that will never fully heal. Kayla lost her Mom, and Hudson and Finn lost the Grandma that was always there for them. The Grandma who was one of the first to hold them after they were born, and would cheer them on in soccer or tee ball games, and would cry while watching performances that they were in. The Grandma that they would jump and cheer for joy when Kayla asked if they wanted to go her house.

In the hours and days after her passing, Hudson and Finn tried their best to process what it all meant. They comforted our tears and continue to give Kayla hugs whenever she thinks about her Mom to this day.

Hudson sat between Kayla and I at the funeral, more stoic and quiet than he had ever been. He doesn't like being anywhere but home, and usually fights and screams any time that we have to go somewhere that isn't a special place for him. Thankfully, there was very little resistance when it came to going to the funeral, and we planned for him to only be there for a short time. As eulogies were read and songs were song, we could see tears off and on rolling down his cheeks. I read the poem that he had given to Sandy on Special Person's Day, and I struggled through the words. In the weeks after the funeral, Hudson would talk about his Grandma Sandy or write about her in projects at school.

When you are living life on the spectrum, it takes a village to survive. But that village is often very small. Grandma Sandy was such a huge part of our village, and we don't know how we'll navigate life without her. There will never be another Special Person like Sandy, and we miss her dearly.

I started a new job early last month with an amazing company that supports remote work and has a family-first mentality. Days before her funeral, Kayla and I decided to gamble on my future and invested in a prestigious but also expensive Project Management certification program through Cornell University. I posted on Facebook that I had started this new journey with the hopes that it would land me a dream job upon completion - a job where I could still have the same availability to Hudson, Finn, and Kayla, without completely destroying Hudson's routines.

Grandma Sandy showed us that she could still perform miracles for our family after her passing. A friend of theirs saw my post while looking for updates on her passing online. This friend, Kera, works for Cornell and out of the goodness of her heart extended me a Friend's and Family discount that refunded nearly all of my course enrollment tuition back to me at a time when we desperately needed to save money.

Sandy told Kayla in December that everything would be OK, and she made sure that she held true to her word.