My "Gift of God"

This post is dedicated to my son Matthew, a name that means “Gift of God.”  Matthew was my first-born and I couldn’t wait for his arrival.  However, things didn’t go so well during my labor – his heartbeat would stop every time I had a contraction -- and when he was born, he was all blue and had to be resuscitated.  They whisked him off to intensive care before I could really comprehend what was happening.  But, after 24 hours of observation, they moved him out of the neonatal ICU and into the regular nursery, and everyone thought he would be OK.

Baby Matthew with Me

Matthew was a colicky and very sleepy baby, but I didn’t think anything of it, because he was my first-born and I didn’t know what to expect.  However, it soon became apparent that he had other problems, too.  He could barely sit up when other babies his age were crawling around.  Although Matt eventually learned to get around by rolling across the floor (it was amazing to watch how fast he could travel by rolling!), he was three years old before he took his first awkward step.  Our pediatrician suggested we take Matt to Riley Hospital for Children, as he was falling farther behind on his developmental milestones.  Riley ran a full array of tests that basically told us nothing, other than the fact that yes, he definitely was “developmentally delayed.”

We were next referred to the Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) for physical therapy and occupational therapy services.  I was extremely upset that my son was being referred to ARC – I was certain he was just a little slow and would catch up someday.  After all, I came from a family of college graduates; there was no one the least bit slow in my line of ancestry and there’s no way my son was going to be retarded!  At our first case conference, after Matt had been a client of ARC for about six months, they stated that his prognosis was severe mental retardation.  I didn’t like what I was hearing and began to cry.  That was the day I finally began to accept that my son really was different from others his own age.  I was not the least bit happy about it, but I was beginning to believe it and eventually came to accept it.

Matt attended a pre-school program for special-needs children at ARC, and it was there that he took his first steps using a pediatric walker (similar to what senior citizens use, only much smaller).  After two years there, he moved on to the public school system, as was required by his age and the education system.  His school was called Park Hill Learning Center and it was exclusively for children with special needs from the ages of 5 to 18.  Those teachers were saints and I appreciated all of the moral support they gave me, and all the love they showed my son.  He was, after all, a very handsome young boy and a real charmer with his big brown eyes.

Matt During his School Years

After several years at Park Hill, in response to Public Law 94-142, which required all children to be educated in the “least restrictive” environment, Matt and all of his schoolmates were integrated into the public schools within their own neighborhood.  Matt started attending Carroll Middle School, where he began acquiring “normal” friends and where he learned his first curse words from a couple of boys who thought it was “funny” to teach them to him.  Oh, how I wished he was still back at the safe environment of Park Hill!  But he finally settled in and we eventually accepted his new school.  Three significant events happened while Matt was approaching his puberty years at around age 12 or 13:  1) He suddenly started having epileptic seizures, probably a delayed reaction to the brain damage he had suffered at birth; 2) He was found to have several traits of autism, which led the professionals to label him as autistic; and 3) He finally became toilet trained, which was quite an accomplishment for someone with Matt’s limited abilities.

Matt finished his public school years at Carroll High School, where once again he was quite popular with his “normal” classmates and his teachers, and where he loved riding his little yellow bus to and from school.  After “graduating” from high school (which really meant he had aged-out of the school system), he started going to the Adult Day Program of Easter Seals Arc (the new, more politically-correct name for the Association for Retarded Citizens).  This program is a safe haven for adults with moderate to severe disabilities where they work on daily living skills to help them become as independent as possible.  Matt has a lot of friends there, and he can’t wait to go to what he calls “Arc School” Monday through Friday.

Matt made a huge leap into independence in December of 2008, when he moved into an Arc group home.  It was a very difficult decision to make for me and his father, because we have cared for him all of his life.  One of the biggest worries of parents of a disabled child is what will happen to their “child” after they are gone.  These are children living in adult bodies and they cannot live on their own.  Matthew is 30 years old chronologically, but he only functions as a 3-year-old child; he enjoys some of the same toys as a young child and has the innocence and the capacity to love of a little boy.  So with all this in mind, and the realization that we were getting older, we finally decided to let Matt go.

Matt with Santa Claus
"Through the Eyes of a Child"

Matt enjoys living at his group home, which is a beautiful new home in Fort Wayne. He has five roommates – one male and four female – and they all have their own room while sharing a common great room and kitchen.  There is a lot of love in his house and the well-trained staff members take good care of the special residents.  As parents, we are always welcomed, and every weekend we go there to pick up Matt and take him “home” for the weekend.  Matt loves the routine and enjoys the benefits of having two loving families to care for him.

Some of Matt’s favorite activities are watching sports in person and on TV; practicing soccer, baseball and basketball at home; and learning how to play Wii bowling and baseball, which he enjoys doing with both families.  His favorite foods are pizza and cookies and his favorite person is Santa Claus; in fact, Matt says he wants to be Santa Claus when he grows up.  Matt loves his family and has been blessed with a loving family, whom he enjoys talking to on the telephone.  He is very friendly and knows no strangers; when he walks into a room or through a store, he will greet you with a smile and a handshake and tell you to “Have a good day!”  His laugh is contagious while he sees life through the eyes of a perpetual child.  And although he isn’t the child I dreamed of as a young mother, I love him immensely and believe he truly is a “Gift of God.” 



My Air Force Son

I have two amazing sons and will be talking about each of them individually.  Today’s blog is about my son Jonathan, since he sent me a wonderful birthday present today and he is heavy on my mind.

Jonathan is 29 years old and a tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.  Obviously I am very proud of him.  He currently is in the middle of a six-month deployment to the Philippines, so I haven’t seen him since last September.  His area of expertise with the Air Force is meteorology, weather forecasting, or whatever you want to call it.  He also has a top-secret military clearance, so all of the things he does for the Air Force may not be entirely weather-related – but since it’s top-secret, I’ll never know for sure.

Family Photos from Recent Christmas Cards

I am proud of Jonathan for a lot of reasons, so where do I begin?  I’ll start with his photography, because the birthday present he sent me today involved family photos from a Hawaiian vacation that we shared last summer.  Jonathan is an accomplished photographer and I am constantly amazed at the many outstanding photographs he has taken. A lot of his photographs can be found on Flicker:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/27562582@N07/ -- go there and take a peek so you can see what I mean.  Although Jonathan is an amateur, many of his photographs have been published pro gratis by nonprofit organizations or publications that have requested his permission, and he also has won photo competitions through DPChallenge (http://www.dpchallenge.com), where he’s known as Jovan.  I like to think I had a part in his photography, having bought him his first camera – a 35 mm – for his high school graduation present in 2000.

Jon & Shana's Wedding Day

Jonathan is married to a beautiful young woman named Shana, and they have two precious little daughters named Lilia (age 5) and Annelise (11 months).  When Jon gets back from the Philippines, they will resume living in Hawaii (Hickam Air Force Base), where they resided the past few years before the deployment.  Other Air Force assignments have taken them to Kaiserslautern, Germany; Biloxi, Mississippi; and Omaha, Nebraska.  Who knows where the next tour of duty will take them?  They are hoping for someplace exotic and I am hoping for someplace not too far away, so I can go visit them without spending a day in an airplane.  Shana and the girls have been staying with her parents in Huntertown while Jon is in the Philippines, so I currently have the unique opportunity to see my granddaughters on a regular basis, which I love – so you can understand why it’s hard when they live far away.

There are lot of other things about Jonathan that make me proud of him, but I won’t go into too much detail so as not to embarrass him.  Suffice it to say that he’s a wonderful young man who loves his family, works hard and has an admirable set of values.  What more could you ask for? 

My Destined Path

Looking back, I think my career path was pre-destined early in life.  I always liked English classes and writing in grade school and was encouraged to write for my school newspaper in eighth grade.  I signed up for a journalism class in high school, and by my senior year became editor of the school newspaper and wrote a column for a local newspaper.  After high school graduation, I worked at the local community newspaper for a couple of summers in between college studies.  I also served as co-editor of The Communicator at IPFW and worked on the staff of the Indiana Daily Student at IU Bloomington while majoring in journalism.  I found journalistic writing to be exciting, rewarding and stimulating.  Each day was different and you were always in on the latest news – plus, you had the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people.

I got married and dropped out of college, worked at a printing company briefly and became a mother.  I volunteered my services to edit a newsletter for a local nonprofit organization while staying at home to be a full-time mom.  When my baby was 2 years old, I started back to school at IPFW and changed my major to English, since journalism was not available at that time.  After a few years of part-time study, I finally finished my undergraduate degree in 1989 with a B.A. in English and felt so proud of my accomplishment!  I always intended to go back to school someday for a master’s degree, but in the meantime I needed to make a living.  By then, I was a single mom and had bills to pay.

Immediately upon graduating from IPFW in 1989, I accepted a marketing position with a local home builder.  The company was the largest home-building company in northeastern Indiana, and it was a fast-paced position that allowed me to use my creativity in a different way, designing advertisements and handouts to promote the builder’s new homes and developing a newsletter called The Homefront.  I met a lot of people through this position and it was a great start to my professional career.

My Chamber Photo in 2000

After seven years with the home builder, I was offered a position as communications manager with the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce.  The pay was better and the position offered more challenges and variety than the previous job.  My main responsibility was creating a monthly publication called Emphasis, which became recognized as one of the top Chamber publications in the country.  I met a lot of the “movers and shakers” in the community (i.e., elected officials, CEOs, etc.) and I could attend all sorts of seminars and events free of charge, which provided opportunities for growth and meeting new people.  It was a “dream job” for me, and over time I was promoted to vice president of communications.  But when I entered my tenth year with the Chamber, things began to change as the economy soured and many of my trusted colleagues either moved on or were downsized.  More and more responsibilities were added to my job description, which required me to work a lot of evenings and weekends, and others’ expectations of what I should be doing seemed to change weekly.  I came to feel burned out, stressed out and tired, as well as drained of all creative energy.

Imagine speeding down a highway, trying to get where you’re going as quickly and safely as possible, and you suddenly come to a roadblock.  Your only options are to turn around and go back the way you came, or to take a side road that leads to places unknown.  When I turned in notice of my intention to leave the Chamber, I had no idea where I was going; I only knew that I needed to move on.  I took the side road, destination unknown.

The departure affected me more than I anticipated, and to be honest, I lost my identity for awhile.  Every time I ran into old acquaintances, they’d ask how things were “down at the Chamber” and I had to explain to them that I was no longer there.  It was hard for them – and me – to understand what had happened.

As it turned out, I went directly from working at the Chamber to a part-time position with the Northeast Indiana Small Business Development Center, a nonprofit organization hosted by IPFW.  I thought the part-time hours would give me a chance to rest up and I would still have the opportunity to use my creative talents to effect positive change, which is one of my missions in life.  After three years, I am still with the SBDC, as it is called, where I specialize in marketing – public relations, business writing and a variety of other creative tasks – all related to promoting the center and helping its clients.  My responsibilities have grown at the SBDC to include business advising, and I have also formed my own sole proprietorship company to offer freelance public relations.  I find it rewarding to help entrepreneurs realize their dreams through my work at the SBDC, as well as assisting nonprofit organizations through my home-based PR business.

When my sons grew up and left home, I started thinking more and more about going back to school.  At first, I considered pursuing a MBA degree, which I thought would be good for my career and help me better understand the “other side” of business.  I took a couple of business classes last fall – accounting and economics -- and realized that the MBA program was not the right one for me.  After exploring the various options, I applied to be a part of the Master of Liberal Studies degree program, and am currently enrolled in my first two graduate-level courses while working full time.

I am excited by this new chapter in my life, but also a little nervous about juggling all the different roles and doing them well.  But with a lot of hard work and determination, I’m hoping to pull it all off, learn a lot, and once again feel that rush of achievement when I finish my master’s degree in a couple of years.  I also am hoping this path will continue to be a scenic route full of opportunities to grow and dream, as I never again want to experience that feeling of being on a dead-end highway to nowhere from just a few years ago.