This is the fifth entry in a series of posts examining the life of a neurodiverse child.
Earlier this year, Flynn’s younger sister had kindergarten orientation on the same day as her graduation from nursery school.
At orientation, seeing Gia excitedly go off with the other future kindergarteners was a “pleasant experience” for Meredith.
With Flynn, it had been a nightmare.
Flynn’s facial blindness has only recently been diagnosed. He-and his parents–could not know what they did not know.
His mom can now understand what he went through, going into a completely new environment and encountering strangers, without nearly enough capability to process what was going on around him.
“He can’t even articulate it, because that’s all he knows,” his mother said.
“How scary must that be for him? How frightening must that be, that you’re just sent off and expected to figure things out when you can’t see, and you can’t make sense of what you’re seeing and no one knows. It just breaks my heart.”
Simple things that most of us don’t think of represented potential pitfalls: no backs to chairs in some of the classrooms, creating a danger with Flynn’s balance issues; being dropped off by the bus and having to wait outside the building; climbing the stairs; finding things in a bookbag.
Like any loving parent, his mother wishes that Flynn had not had to go through what he went through in kindergarten and continues to suffer through now.
At Gia’s graduation, Flynn, who was in attendance with his family, inadvertently created something of a scene.
Flynn asked if he could give his sister a hug after the ceremony, but he went to the wrong little girl. Flynn knew that Gia was the fourth person from the center. But she was on the right. Flynn went left and tried to hug a stranger.
Because of the crowded environment and because all the kids were in caps and gowns, he really did not know where Gia was. His brain could not see her.
“He was mortified,” his mom related, “and so embarrassed in front of the entire graduation.”
Flynn started screaming and crying and ran out of the graduation.
“I just can’t imagine that feeling for him,” his mom said.
It was an epiphany for Meredith, now worried that she was grieving for the loss of “typical motherhood” the way we grieve for the deceased.
She worries about the effect Flynn’s trials have on Gia and younger brother Kyle.
Graduation/orientation day, like so many others, turned into an emotional seesaw: happiness, joy, pride flipped by sadness, worry, fear for Flynn.
Any parent who has had to deal with the sickness of a child, family addiction, or a death in the family knows that they can be a sucking black hole for family time, parental emotions, thoughts about the future.
Flynn’s day was not over yet.
When they got home from Gia’s graduation, two neighborhood kids rode up on their bikes and asked Flynn if he wanted to ride with them.
But Flynn can’t ride a bike and will never be able to.
Flynn tried to join in by “narrating whatever they were doing,” explained his mom.
When the two boys headed inside to play, Flynn asked if he could go with them.
“No” was the answer.
Flynn trudged home defeated, telling his mother they weren’t very nice to him.
One of the kids was his only “friend” at school. The other delights in bullying Flynn.
Flynn deals with some variation of that scenario every day.
Every day is a fight, financially, physically, emotionally, to address Flynn’s needs and provide the best life possible for him.
Every day is a battle just to level the playing field just a little bit for Flynn.
Frustrating for his parents.
Can we even imagine how frustrating that is for Flynn?
The Q-View 