The path to Nirvana leads oddly enough to Branson, Missouri -- Part One
The path to Nirvana leads oddly enough to Branson, Missouri by Erica Mullenix
The plan this summer was to send my two older children to separate summer camps: my typical kid to typical summer camp and my special needs kid to a one-on-one Nirvana on a sparkling northern California lake. Of the two camps, the typical kid camp was far more organized and receptive to my thousand questions. My eight-year-old had never been away from me for more than three days, and had never been away from family at all. When a friend suggested he join her two boys for eight days in Missouri, the second thing I did after having a heart attack was to arrange a meeting with the two families. Jordan, my special needs kid tagged along, dazzling the other family's boys with her iPhone and other beeping toys she keeps with her at all times.
The California Nirvana? Couldn't return a phone call even as my messages got more desperate. All I needed was the exact location so I could start arranging Jordan's transportation. I wasn't going to drive from Texas to California, but I was willing to put Jordan unattended on a plane. I just needed to know where to send her once she landed. I know. Tough questions. By the time I'd gotten the camp director to answer the phone with 1000 reasons for why she'd never called me back, I'd decided to keep Jordan home with me for the summer because that is what I do. Keep Jordan close. Our plan was to shop for her first day of high school, get massages, get our toes painted, ship her brothers off: one to camp, the other to Daddy's. That was the plan until I got depressed thinking that I never have any time to myself and, by God, if I didn't get this 15-year-old off my lap this summer, it might not ever happen.
So I called one of the organizers of the typical kids camp and asked if she had room for Jordan. And that was that.
Well, not really that. I got talked off many ledges in the weeks leading up to camp. Jordan has been in some form of therapy since she was 11 weeks old, and she is far more comfortable in the company of adults than she is with kids her own age. Her primary listeners have always been teachers and therapists, and her peers very often don't know what to make of her physical and mental delays. She tires of explaining herself to people, and it's easier to talk to those already in the know who don't judge her. And here I was putting her on a 12-hour bus ride with a bus full of teenagers, her brother riding with his own group on another charter.
It was a rough week. For Mommy only.
She's back from camp, she did great, she wants to go again next year. Yeah, she hung out with her counselors and none of the girls from her cabin. She sat on the bus alone going and coming back because she wanted to listen to her iPod and sleep by herself and not worry about trying to make rapid-fire conversation with the other girls. She made it easy for herself, she adapted as usual and has talked my ear off about the trip every day since she's been back.
I like how it was an extreme sports camp, so if it rained, the activities didn't stop. She was caught in a downpour while on an obstacle course and, to encouragement and cheers, finished the course. She read books during FOB (flat-on-back time, heh) and, even though people with one-sided weaknesses tend to fatigue easily, rested only when the others did. She has come home courteous and respectful, as has her brother. I'm not sure who these aliens are living in my house, but they can stay as long as they like.
Erica Mullenix is a writer and special needs parent living in Texas with her three children and Lab mix pound puppy who blogs daily at freefringes.com and tweets as @hmx5. Her previous articles for A Wild Ride can be found here and here.
