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.