Forest Bathing

The summer I was 20, I lived and worked at a youth hostel and retreat center in Grand Lake, Colorado. An Indiana girl, I had before then only ever dreamed of living in the mountains. I spent much of that summer in Colorado wondering why I was born in the flat land of corn.

The job required me to spend three out of every five days running the registration desk, cleaning toilets, and cutting vegetables (not all at the same time, obviously). But, the other two days, I was free to roam, and little by little, I covered most of the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park, walking alone for hours surrounded by rocks, trees, and bodies of water whose grandeur was a constant reminder of how small and insignificant my life was next to the vastness of the universe and the expanse of geologic time.

My days on those trails were spent encountering unexpected wildlife and discovering new vistas around every turn. In the mountains, I was completely present. Everything seemed clearer. I felt like I could breathe for the first time. I left that summer in the mountains restored.

Me, Colorado circa 1992

One of my good friends from college spent the same summer at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. In those pre-email days, I was a fervent letter writer, and she was one of my most reliable pen pals. I wrote about my anguish at knowing my time in those mountains was limited since, come August, I had to go back to the stifling humidity and relentless flatness of the Midwest. She wrote back, "Breathe deep the mountain air and save it for the rougher days."

I'm not sure I've gotten such good advice before or since.

Back at college, I tried to live by those words and draw upon the lessons I learned during those hours alone in the mountains. And, when the last reserves of mountain air seemed to leave me, I drove along the lonely country roads of rural Indiana searching for any vista that could appease my wandering soul.

I've had chances to be in the mountains since then. Ren and I met and started dating because of our love of hiking. For three years I lived on the side of a mountain in rural Kyushu and rode my bike along rivers and rice paddies. I spent weekends with Ren exploring Kuju and Aso and Kirishima. But, our struggles with autism and allergies and the (god forsaken) spine have left us landlocked in a barren landscape. It's hard to imagine hiking and biking and camping given the set of challenges we face, and it's even harder not to feel completely hemmed in by the fears that these challenges bring. But, it has also become abundantly clear to me that I need the mountains and woods like I need the air in my lungs.

*****

Just after sunrise at camp.

As things have fallen apart the past few weeks, I've felt myself drawn to the woods (flat though they may be). Walking along creeks or lakes in the early morning or evening, I try to find some of that "mountain air" that makes it possible to breathe.

In Japan, they acknowledge the restorative power of nature by emphasizing the importance of "forest bathing" (shinrin yoku). Forest bathing highlights how simply being in the woods can heal our souls.

Sunset at camp.

I've started taking the kids with me when I walk or bike. It seems they could use some restoration, too. It thrills me to see them drawn to the trees and streams and rocks. They haven't lost their ability to let nature speak to them.

Near home.

We had already started planning a two-week road trip out West when we learned about the broken rods, so yesterday after we got home from the surgery consult, I had to tell the kids the trip was off. Their responses were quick and unfiltered; they were angry and sad and scared. They wanted to know why they have to spend so much of their lives waiting for their dad to have surgery or waiting for him to recover from surgery. They wanted to know if we would ever get to go to Florida or Colorado or Hawaii or any of the many places their friends visit in the summer. They worried about starting middle school and high school less than two weeks after the surgery. They know how much life turns upside down when Ren has surgery, and they were worried about what this seventh spine surgery would mean for all of us.

Whereas with previous surgeries, I could convince them (and myself) to look on the bright side, this time, I found myself at a loss for words. They're right. This is scary and unfair. None of us deserves this.

Near home.

Today, I decided we'd go to the mountains anyway. It will be a shorter trip, and we will have to fly instead of drive. I'm trying not to worry about the cost of it as we head into another avalanche of medical bills. Maybe forest bathing is what we need to get us through this time. I don't know, but it's certainly worth a try.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." 
John Muir

Nerf Karate Panda Party

Stow has been talking about his birthday party for months. He kept suggesting grand plans that sounded, well, hard. And, expensive. He wanted to go to Great Wolf Lodge (So. Overpriced. Also, no way am I spending the night at a water park with other people’s kids. I know my limits!). He wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese (This is my wish for you, dear blog reader; may you never, ever have to do a party at Chuck E. Cheese). He wanted to do a swimming nerf party (Gah! Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to, well, you know. Plus, the last time we tried to do a swim party on his birthday, it was cold and rainy and everyone ended up inside watching a movie they’d all already seen).

“Let’s have a karate party,” I suggested more than once, but Stow resisted the idea. The anxiety Stow developed during the basketball season had carried over into karate, and he missed a lot of lessons during the winter. This made it difficult to help him get back into the swing of it. For weeks, I'd been kicking myself for not anticipating the ways that changing his karate routine might mess up the awesome vibe he'd developed there.

Two equally compelling reasons drove my persistence with the karate birthday party suggestion, though. First, it would be a cheap and easy party. They provide the karate instruction and the space as well as a free (!) month of lessons for each kid, and all I had to do was bring food and decorations. After a long semester and a fifth-grade campout, I couldn’t imagine a better way to manage a birthday. Second, I hoped having a party at a place where he’s been successful would give him confidence and maybe even reignite his passion for karate.

So, I enlisted Pink’s help. Whenever the topic of Stow’s birthday party came up, she knew to casually say, “A karate party would be so cool! I wish I could have one.”

Up until two weeks before his birthday, Stow continued to change his mind about his party. He wanted a shopping mall party (???), a movie theater party, a Build-A-Bear party. It seemed that every encounter in his life held the potential of being the world’s best birthday party.

As he started to finally settle into and do well at karate again, I decided to ask one last time.

“What would be your favorite party ever?” I asked him on our way home from a karate class.

“A nerf gun panda party!” he replied, without missing a beat.

“Well, we can’t do a nerf party at our house, but I can ask about doing that at the karate place.”

“Yay!” He replied.

And, so finally, he agreed and we found ourselves hosting the first (and probably last) ever Nerf Karate Panda party:

Nerf battle.

Makeshift panda cupcakes.

Party favors--Panda sleeping masks.

And, it turned out to be a perfect little party. The kids had fun. It was low stress for me. Best of all, many of the boys said it was their favorite party ever. The only downside?

Finn. He's been following me around the house ever since the party, staring at me with his flat affect and soulless eyes, oddly stiff arms and legs that don't entirely bend at the waist...Every time I turn around, there he is. It's hard to get things done when Finn stares at me like that. 

A Thousand Tiny Cuts

I wish I could say that Ren and I have come to terms with the spine news, but we haven't. I wish I could say that my powers of positive thinking and spiritual beliefs have helped me know it will be okay, but that's not true, either. Instead, in the down time I've had between the fifth-grade camping trip, Stow's "Nerf Karate Panda" birthday party, and various graduation activities this weekend, I've been mentally composing a list of the thousand tiny cuts that threaten to do us in. 

So, I made a table. I know it's lame and that you probably don't even care, but I feel like someone needs to keep a record, a record that will either tell of our amazing ability to persevere and overcome or one that so clearly maps the detours and road blocks along the path to our demise.

September 2009	Moe starts as teaching fellow at small liberal arts college.
December 2010	Sky formally diagnosed with autism after extensive testing; Pink is diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy.
March 2011	Pink is diagnosed with other food allergies.
May 2011	Stow is born.
May 2011	Pink is hospitalized and receives asthma diagnosis.
September 2011	Ren’s back goes south on Sky’s first (and Ren's last) ever Cub Scout camping trip.
March 2012	Ren has his first spine surgery (a lamnioplasty) in the lumbar spine.
March 2012	Moe accepts position as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the same college.
May 2012	Moe successfully defends her dissertation.
May 2012	Stow turns 1.
August 2012	Ren has his second spine surgery (a laminectomy) in the lumbar spine; Stow is diagnosed with C-diff and a MRSA infection.
March 2013	Moe accepts a tenure-track position.
April 2013	Stow has an endoscopy, colonoscopy, and cystoscopy to determine cause of multiple infections and repeated “failure to thrive.”
May 2013	Stow turns 2.
July 2013	Family moves from one small midwestern town to a another small midwestern town.
August 2013	Moe starts new job.
November 2013	Ren has first his lumbar fusion surgery.
Winter 2013/2014	Polar vortex—Ren doesn’t leave the house from November until April. Moe shovels a LOT of snow.
March 2014	Ren and Moe go to Mayo Clinic to see if anything can be done for the spine. They are told (paraphrasing), "The spine is bad. It won't get better. Learn to live with pain."
May 2014	Stow turns 3.
September 2014	Ren has a 2-level fusion in his cervical spine.
May 2015	Stow turns 4.
September 2015	Ren diagnosed with severe depression.
November 2015	Spine surgeon discovers spinal cord is at risk of being permanently damaged due to stenosis.
December 2015	Ren has a second lumbar fusion and doesn’t leave the house from December to April.
February 2016	Stow is preliminarily diagnosed with autism.
May 2016	Stow turns 5.
December 2016	Family completes first year since 2010 that no one is hospitalized.
March 2017	Stow is formally diagnosed with autism after extensive testing.
May 2017	Ren’s kyphosis is so bad, they (Ren, Moe, and the specialists) determine it needs to be fixed so Ren can have a chance at a better quality of life. Stow turns 6.
July 2017	Ren has a spinal fusion from T2-S1 that requires 140 staples. He doesn't leave the house for anything except doctor's appointments until October.
August 2017	Ren hospitalized for heart attack symptoms.
September 2017	Ren hospitalized with double pulmonary emboli.
December 2017	Lung cancer scare for Ren.
January 2018	Doctor suspects bone bruise in femur and tells Ren he has to limit walking for six weeks.
May 2018	Stow turns 7.
December 2018	Moe gets tenure. Ren cleared by spine surgeon’s office after x-rays and exam show fusion looking good, completing only the second year since 2010 that no one was hospitalized.
January 2019	Polar vortex. Ren starts feeling new pain and hearing new noises coming from his lower back.
April 2019	After months of phone consultations, Ren finally agrees to be seen at spine center again.
May 2019	Spine doctor discovers broken rods. Stow turns 8.

When I am looking on the bright side, I remind myself that these circumstances would test the strongest of families, and I tell myself we should be proud of how we've pulled through and found humor and joy even in the hardest times. But, when I can't find the bright side, I wonder why the hits just keep coming and doubt that I have it in me to keep fighting.

I've promised myself and my readers that this blog will always be "real," and sometimes real means that I don't know what comes next or whether we have the grit and strength necessary to face it.  I don't know how we go on from here, but I do know that we have a spine consult scheduled for this week and that Ren and I will do what we can to keep moving forward until we just can't do it anymore.

Facing Your Fears

Less than 24 hours after learning that Ren's rods are broken, I left for camp where I spent three days and two nights as a chaperone for Pink's fifth-grade trip. When Sky was in fifth grade, I went to the same camp to support him through all of the excitement (and transitions and potentially overstimulating surprises) of life in the woods, so I knew what to expect. Still, even before our visit to the spine doctor, my anxiety about going on the same trip with Pink slowly inched skyward.

Sunset at Camp

Then we had the appointment and got the news and I stumbled through the rest of that day and woke up the next morning having not packed or prepared for the trip in any way. In the 2 1/2 hours I had before it was time to go, I threw things into a bag, got Stow and Sky fed and out the door (which wasn't easy since when Stow realized Pink and I would be gone, he proceeded to have a pretty spectacular meltdown), wrote the last blog post (coping strategy!), and rushed out the door.

To say I wasn't in the right headspace to deal with a group of excited preteens is an understatement. It took a lot of energy to stay present with the kids and the other parents; I really just wanted to sit and stare at the wall. But, since I was one of four parents responsible for getting a group of sixteen kids through a bevy of activities spread throughout the sprawling campground, I didn't have much time to sit and stare into space. Heck, if it wasn't for the other three parents, I might not have even had time to use the restroom. 

I can only hope my attitude wasn't as bad as how I felt. I tried to take breaks from the chaos where I could, especially when I felt least able to be my best self with the kids. Of course, the kids pushed our patience pretty consistently, and by the end of the first day, I wasn't sure I'd make it through two more days. 

But, then something amazing started to happen. We started to see kids facing and overcoming various challenges and fears. The boy deathly afraid of snakes touched the back of a python. The girl who'd never slept away from home before made it through the night without calling home. The boy disgusted by leeches discovered he was fascinated by how they swim. The girl afraid of heights stepped out onto the beam thirty feet off the ground and the managed to walk across to the other side. 

Pink discovered her greatest challenge at one of the first activities our group did--the high ropes course. Along with her classmates, she got strapped into a climbing harness and put on a helmet, and (following thorough instructions) prepared to climb up onto the ropes. But, a few steps up the climbing pole, she froze. Despite all of her confidence, she couldn't will herself to climb all the way to the top, and by the end of the hour, after multiple tries, she only managed to make it two-thirds of the way.

Halfway up the High Ropes

Her inability to get up on the ropes made Pink worry that she wouldn't be able to manage the big event at camp, a zipline that starts from a tower five stories above the ground. The students hear from their teachers and siblings and older friends that the zipline is amazing and that they will regret it if they don't try it. After she struggled on the high ropes, Pink repeatedly asked me if I would climb the tower and/or zipline with her. I ziplined with Sky three years ago, so I knew the tower swayed in the wind and that the last step is up onto a small step that's probably not even a foot square. This is a kid who still sometimes asks me to hold her hand to calm her nerves on narrow, steep steps, so I wasn't sure she'd be able to do it. As we walked together to the top of the tower, she had tears in her eyes. But, she didn't stop. When it was her time to walk out onto the platform, she did it, and when the instructor shouted "3! 2! 1!" she glanced at me over her shoulder and then took off without hesitation. 

Pink, Flying

A boy in Pink's group named Ryan never made it to the high ropes. He never got to the top of the zipline tower. But, gosh, did he try. He went from adamantly insisting that he would never put on a harness and helmet to wearing them and taking a few giant steps up the high ropes climbing pole. And, even though he was too scared to walk up the zipline tower with his classmates, he didn't stop pushing himself. On my way down the steps to check on kids who had already "zipped," I found him clinging to the rail three flights up. Despite his intense fear, he'd gotten there on his own, going at his own pace. Twice he descended the steps only to convince himself to climb them again. By then every kid on his team was cheering him from the ground. Unfortunately, time ran out before Ryan could reach the top, but he never gave up.

Ryan facing his fears on his own terms.

I was proud of all the kids for the ways they faced their fears and tried new things, but most of all, I was proud of the way Ryan never stopped trying to do just a little better and to go just a little farther despite the fact he was absolutely terrified.

Even though we received soul-crushing, scary news this week, three days in the woods with a bunch of kids reminded me that life goes on and that all any of us can ever do is what Ryan did--steadily and determinedly put one foot in front of the other to face our fears head on.

Broken

There are some days in your life that start off one way and end entirely differently. Somewhere in the course of the day, something happens, and you know things will never be the same. I've had a few days like that.  I suspect everyone has.

Yesterday was one of those days for us. The weird thing is, I should have seen it coming. Something I haven't talked about much on this blog is Ren's severe depression. I don't talk about it because it really isn't my story to tell. What I can say, though, is that every time I notice his depression getting worse, it turns out there is something seriously wrong with the spine. It makes sense, right? The spine goes south, the pain increases, and he gets depressed. Only because he always experiences pain and because sometimes the pain ebbs and flows based on things like the weather or whether he did something more taxing than usual, it's not always clear when there is something new wrong with the back.

Before my own depression re-emerged after years of being under control, it was a lot easier to deal with things like the obsessions and meltdowns that come with autism and with the bad moods that come with spine pain. When my depression came back two years ago, the biggest concern I had was how I would continue to manage the intense stress that comes with our particular combination of autism, spine issues, and depression. Despite the fact that all signs pointed to the depression being back, I refused to believe it for months (do not recommend, btw).

The last few months have been hard. It can be hard to figure out how to keep myself in an ok place when everyone else is struggling. Depression and autism probably go together much more than people discuss, and it's a combo I wouldn't wish on anyone. I tried cajoling Ren out of his funk. I made threats. I asked him to leave for awhile to figure out how to be happier (he refused). I'm not sure I'd recommend any of these approaches, either.

Ren didn't know what was wrong, but he knew he couldn't leave and he knew he had to figure out how to turn things around despite the fact he was feeling pretty poor physically and mentally. He agreed to see the doctor to talk about medication and agreed, finally, to go back to the spine practice just to see if they could help. His refusal to go to the spine doctor makes sense to me because the pattern of how things go is the same--they try to figure out ways to manage the pain and only if and when that doesn't work, they decide to do an MRI or a CT. Every time we start the process of trying to figure out what's wrong, we learn something is really, really wrong. This has been our experience in three different practices in three different states. Surgical intervention with the spine is always the last resort, and it is always preferable to focus on least invasive procedures. This also makes sense to me.

Yesterday, we had our appointment with the non-surgical doctor at the spine center. We told her that we were pretty sure something what up in the lower back. We agreed that it didn't make much sense that he would be having the severe, pre-surgery-level pain given the fact there should be no movement there. And yet, and yet, we both suspected something was very, very wrong. At first, she tried to tell us the pain must be muscular, working on the assumption that the least likely scenario, a broken screw or rod, was, indeed, unlikely. She talked about restarting physical therapy or doing a pressure point injection. I told Ren he needed to tell her if he thought she was missing the point. So, he did.

"My leg goes numb when I lie down," he said.

"He says the pain feels like nerve pain and is as bad as it has ever been," I follow up.

"You know what?" she said. "Let's just take an X-ray to be sure."

Fifteen minutes later, she walked back in, ashen-faced.

"Well, I'm glad we took an X-ray," she started hesitantly, like doctors do when they have really bad news. "The rods are broken."

OMG

Do you ever get ringing in your ears? Do you ever feel like you can't think straight? Do you sometimes find it hard not to burst into tears on the spot? It took a lot of effort not to lose it completely, and I only vaguely heard her as she told us we'd need to get a CT scan and that the surgeon was already working through various repair strategies. "I'm so sorry this is happening to you guys," she said as we walked out. Small consolation.

When we got to the elevator, I wept while Ren patted me awkwardly on the back.  By the time the elevator got to the first floor, I pulled it together. In the car, I asked Ren how he was doing. "At least I know I'm not crazy," he said. "If I can live without fixing it, that's what I want to do."

We don't know what will happen next, but I suspect this is something that can't go unfixed. The uncanny timing of this, mapping almost perfectly on what happened two years ago, scares me. I saw a meme on FB the other day. "I can do this, I thought. And, even if I can't, I have to." That's where I am with all of this right now. Here's to learning the depths of our strength even though we don't want to.

Game Night

Yesterday was Game Night at the kids' school. Game Night seems like such a quaint idea, the perfect opportunity to enjoy community time at school! Right? Right?!?!

Here’s what I imagine happens for parents of neurotypical kids at events like this: the parent and kid come in together, find friends (for both parent and kid alike) and then keep a loose eye on one another as they enjoy conversations with their peers. I guess that the occasional warning or reminder happens and that at some point the kid begs for food, and I imagine that the parent might wish they could be somewhere besides a school gym on a Friday night. This is all speculation of course because I’ve never actually gone to one of these events as the parent of all neurotypical kids.

My nights at events like this go a little differently. Stow was the target audience for this event, so we went together. Fortunately Sky and Pink volunteered to help run events because it turned out that I needed multiple pairs of eyes to get through the night. Nothing catastrophic happened, you guys, but two hours felt like an eternity. 

First he ran to the back gym to play basketball, which essentially consisted of throwing the ball wildly in the direction of a basket before weaving in and out of other players. Friends from his class tried to say hi and engage him in play, but he didn’t notice.

Jenga

Without warning he ran out of that gym and crashed a giant Jenga game that a mom and her son were enjoying together quite peacefully. I reminded Stow that he needed to ask if it was ok to join their game. He mumbled and they told him he was welcome to play, but, really, did they have a choice? After a few rounds, during which he broke every possible Jenga rule, he decided to take out the last remaining piece holding the tower in place, sending the tower crashing loudly to the ground. Before we could pick up the mess, he was off to interrupt another calm mother-son duo who were playing cornhole (aka “bags” depending on where you’re from). They were less accommodating to his interruption; it seems they didn't like how he insisted on taking all the bags and repeatedly throwing them into the hole as he stood directly over the board.

At about this time the “cake walk” started, and Stow became determined to win a prize. Each round, fourteen people could cake walk, while the rest of us stood in line. No matter how many rounds we did, Stow couldn’t accept that he had to go to the back of the line after each turn, and it took some wrestling to get him there. It’s hard to wrestle without making a scene. As we waited in line over and over again, I found myself trying to calculate the number of rounds it would take for one of us to win. I couldn’t work out the role variability played in the calculation, though. It’s been awhile since I’ve calculated probability. 

On our eighth try, Stow won and quickly chose a 2-liter bottle of lemonade as his prize. That meant, of course, that we had to find a place to drink it. The only empty tables happened to be in the board game area. After a brief game of “Ants in the Pants,” Stow decided he would play “Kerplunk.” It didn’t bother him that someone else had already started a game. He sat and tried to join in. 

“Do you remember what I told you to say when you want to play?” I prompted him.

“I want to play!” he responded.

“No, remember it’s nice to say, ‘Can I join you?’”

He looked at me but didn’t bother trying again. The game had already started. The other pair was a parent and a preschooler. It amazed me how well the preschooler listened and kept it together, even when Stow started spinning the tube around as fast as he could in an attempt to launch the marbles. Soon there were marbles rolling in every direction at once, and he was off again.

“Thanks for letting him play,” I said over my shoulder as I chased after him. Before I could catch up with him, another parent I hadn’t seen in awhile stopped me to say hello. Five minutes later, conversation done, I realized I had no idea which direction Stow had gone. Sky, who was working concessions, hadn’t seen him run past, so I sent Pink in one direction and headed off in the other.

Ten minutes later, we hadn’t found him, despite both checking all the rooms. Had he made his way into one of the deserted hallways of the school? Had he gone outside? His preschool and first-grade special ed teachers were working the event, and I was pretty sure one of them would have stopped him before he got out the door, but where WAS he? 

Found him!

Here. He was here. In the corner, hidden behind the table and some cafeteria storage units, playing bingo. Once I determined he wouldn’t wander off (primarily because I had Pink stay with him but also because I knew he wanted to win at bingo), I thought it would be safe to go to the restroom. It was my first break all night.

When I walked out of the restroom, I almost crashed into Stow who had won a prize at bingo and was running back to the gym so he could throw himself on the floor and tear open the new game. Pink followed behind carrying the 2-liter bottle of lemonade. She handed it to me and ran off to play with her friends.

I slid down to the floor and sat next to Stow, hands full of three bags of half eaten popcorn, a partially-consumed bottle of lemonade, and Pink’s jacket. There were still 45 minutes to go.

Once he realized the new game needed batteries, Stow abandoned it to dance and run around with the other kids. I put all the game pieces back into the box, picked up the pile of things and made my way to the bleachers. Around me groups of parents chatted, their kids checking checking in from time to time before heading off to dance or play basketball again. I watched Stow bounce around the gym, running in and out. Occasionally a classmate would invite him to join them, but before long, he was off running again.

The mom from "Kerplunk" wandered in my direction. For the first time, I noticed she was pregnant.

“This is exhausting,” I said to her.

She laughed and pointed to her stomach, “Especially with this. Twins.”

“Thank you for your patience with my son,” I said. “I’m sorry he wasn’t a better example for yours.”

“He was great!” she replied. “Before he invited himself to play with us, my son was too scared to talk to anyone, but now look at him. Your son helped loosen him up!”

Sure enough, her son was jumping around with his classmates having a grand time. We chatted for a few more minutes before the kids pulled us in separate directions. Stow was throwing cornhole bags at a friend. 

I called him over.  “That will hurt him. I think he doesn’t want you to do that,” I said.

“No, he likes it. He did the same thing to me,” Stow replied earnestly before dashing off again. In the middle of the gym, a group of kids about Stow’s age had formed a conga line and were dancing to the Macarena. 

Stow walked toward the light array next to the DJ stand. After staring at the lights for awhile, he turned and stared at the DJ. Then he got down on the ground to see the lights and the DJ from that angle. By then, the last song, had been announced.

Stow bolted over and grabbed his game.

“We need to find your brother and sister,” I said to Stow as he dashed off again. Next Pink found me, “Go get your brothers,” I said, thinking that Stow had gone to get Sky at the concession stand. A few minutes later, Pink and Sky came back to the gym.

“Where’s Stow?” I asked.

“He’s outside. Says he’s going to walk home,” Sky replied.

“Then why are you both in here?” I asked, pushing my way through the crowd to try to get to Stow before he set off in the dark.

“You told us to come find you,” Sky said matter-of-factly.

When we found him, Stow was standing on top of the half-wall regaling people with stories of his victorious evening. This seems to have distracted him from his plan to walk home. I corralled the three kids into the car and drove home.

“How’d it go?” Ren asked when we walked in. He was sitting with the cats, reading a book on his iPad.

“Stow won prizes,” I said and then silently retreated into our bedroom and sat in the quiet darkness for a long, long time.