My son Dar and I spent the last two weeks in Montreal doing auditory integration therapy with a Dr. I trust and admire. It was a great one-on-one two week long therapeutic vacation enabling lots of bonding time between me and my 26 year old man-child. Then last Tuesday while walking back from therapy Dar was hit by a car (no worries he’s unscathed, though my hearts still thumping) crossing the street behind me in the middle of a snow blizzard. As soon as we got to the hotel Rye, a different son, called to say he’d been fired and wanted some supportive advice. Just as I finished dealing with him Dar had a reaction to something he ate and began exploding with the diarrhea his hands are too disabled to clean up. Our heat register broke so I used the stove to heat up this over priced under-serviced apartment/hotel room but that only lasted an hour as the stove fuse went out with a resounding ‘pop’ that sounded like ‘go to bed and forget about it’. We crawled under some covers and fell asleep only to be awakened just past midnight by the fire alarm. After two hours of standing in the snow with my autistic gentleman, while ambulances careened around corners and firemen came and went, the two of us returned to our room. We went back to bed and quickly to sleep. That night – while sleeping – my neurofeedback units (ten thousand dollars worth of uninsured equipment that I use to make a living) were stolen. The next day Dar and I headed off – as per usual – on our two-mile hike to the Doctors for therapy. It was still storming. We arrived covered in snow looking like snowmen and sweating from the exertion of climbing hills of powdered white.

‘How was your night?’ the Doctor asked. “ Pretty much the same as always – full of adventure.”

because of course it was

always

full of adventure. Besides I didn’t know about the theft yet – and even if I did – the French English barrier between us excluded any possibility of complete sharing.

However, while my son was doing his therapy, I thought about my accustomness to eventfulness and realized how lucky I was: One of the greatest advantages of raising eight kids – some of them disabled – is there’s always drama, so problem solving is second nature and you become very resilient.

On the other hand when you raise eight kids – some of them disabled – there’s always a need for problem solving and resilience

so maybe its not really luck just a well honed defensive maneuver masquerading as skill

probably so

but I still feel lucky.