Everyone that loves you know the outbursts is not in your voice.

Hands flaring. Nose glaring. The outbursts are not by choice.

Pitch getting loud, redirection leading to nowhere.

These outbursts are only noise.

For a mind overflowing with visions of sunsets, and Orion and dreams of a little star that could, even as tears gently roll.

In the end, there are lessons with each noise, lessons though not by choice, and lessons through your voice.

And they all remind us of choirs of angels singing at a place called Gethsemane.

We went to the Live Sky Tonight show at the Planetarium yesterday. It was a first for us. When we visit the Planetarium we usually watch the show the Little Star that Could. This time, I decided to try something different. I completely forgot my first son only loves the same thing. He is also obsessed with the solar systems and I thought I was doing something great to expand his knowledge base. Well I thought wrong. The show was great. He loved every moment of it. It was the end. He kept on asking so when are we going to watch the movie Little Star that Could. I told him we didn’t come for it plus besides it happens only in the morning and we’ll it would have to be another day. That didn’t go well with him and right there in the middle of the room, a full melt down began.

We pleaded and pleaded but his mind went somewhere else. Completely unable to process anything we were saying. So I did the best I could, with baby in my arm, picked him up, and proceeded to walk him out of the planetarium. There were stares. The kind that makes you want to go somewhere and hide and wait till the world is asleep to come out. My son kept raising his voice as if he would get help from his over stimulation. We kept walking what seemed liked forever until we got outside and straight to the car. I felt really terrible for my other kids because they wanted to see other parts of the planetarium. But having a meltdown meant that we had to all go home.

Keeping this here as a reminder that having a child on the spectrum will push you out of your limits. We don’t have meltdowns as much as we used to. In fact during the show I remembered when we first came to the Planetarium and how I vowed we would never be back. I watched in amazement as my son sat still and took it all in. There is growth through the spectrum and we see it for ourselves every single day. But there are still moments and days where nothing seems to work and it’s like the beginning where nothing seems to make sense. We know these days are part of his stories and that he is even sorry, in fact always sorry for causing such a meltdown. He says so himself, apologizing for what he can’t seem to control. That’s why I will always be grateful for him. For the grace he teaches even under enormous stress. My only hope is not for this to pass, but more for us to remember that lessons of a meltdown with children on the spectrum. The grace too that follows after so much stress. We keep learning from him every day.