The Future
Sometimes people ask, what does Jayden's future look like? Will he live on his own? Will he always need someone to care for him, to dress him, to help him with the bathroom, to put his shoes on, to feed him, and to bathe him along with a list of other questions? Will his behaviors always be severe? Will you be able to care for him when he gets older? What if his behavior is still severe; surely you and David can’t take care of him forever! Will he ever go to school? Will he ever walk, talk, or develop past the mental age that he is at now? I have heard all of these questions and so much more throughout the last nine years.
However, I am not a psychic. Therefore, I cannot answer any of these questions with certainty. I can tell you what I hope for, but that does no good either because me hoping for something is not going to make it happen. All I can say for sure is that until the day that I die, I will help him do everything that he needs to do each and every day. I will dress him, change his diaper, feed him, and push him in his wheelchair until the day I die or until the day I can no longer physically move.
Of course, I have a fear of the unknown. Not knowing what his future holds scares me more than anything does because I cannot plan for the future. I can’t make plans to work outside of the home because one day he will be in school all day like most parents can. I can’t plan for what he is going to be when he grows up because I do not know if he is going to grow up. Yes, his body will grow up. He will get bigger, he will go through puberty, he will change his personality a million times over again throughout the years, but will he grow up? Will he mentally grow up? At age 9, he is around two years old in most developmental areas, so does that mean at age 18 he will be double or triple that? I have no clue. I have no idea where he is going to go from here. Do I believe he will continue to develop and grow? Of course I do based on his current abilities; however, I don’t know. I will never know until we get there.
So, I try to just move through life and deal with what is currently in front of me instead of what may be in the distant future. With my daughter, I could always plan, but with Jayden, that is just not the case, so why waste my time? I just take each day for what it is, and I continue to watch him grow and develop into an amazing young man who is more stubborn than anyone I have ever met lol.