I’m 43 this year.  Four decades of changing beliefs.  The older we get, I suspect we marvel at how profoundly those beliefs we once held so firmly shift and change with time. 

One important thing I no longer believe is that I am solely in control of my future or the future of my family.  It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how much effort you save when you finally arrive at this conclusion. 

Five years ago, I believed I could get pregnant and have a second perfect child to keep my first perfect son company.  I wasn’t right about that.  The months rolled by, the stick remained stubbornly un-blue and I became agitated at my inability to create this life I so desperately wanted.  There were many things I knew I could make happen just by hard work and good luck and the force of my wanting them.  But after a certain age, pregnancy was not one of them. 

I hunted down the best fertility doctor insurance would pay for.  I endured the dirty looks of other women in Dr. Make-It-Happen’s waiting room, where I had to bring my precious two-year old to wait with me for my daily blood tests.  The ladies occupying the other chairs seemed to say, “What on earth are you taking up this space for?  You already have a kid!”  But nothing can deter a mother who wants another child.  After surgery, scads of tests, tubes and needles, I found myself pregnant at age 39 with my second son.

Now in the Lifetime Movie version of this story, we should happily fade to black when I push him out on the delivery table in a joyful, sweaty, tearful haze.  My second son was born perfect with a shock of red hair.  He is a beautiful child with clear blue eyes, ivory skin and a winning smile.  Several specialists have told me he is also probably autistic. 

So you see, we’re already off into a whole other movie, with me thrust in the Susan Sarandon role from “Lorenzo’s Oil.”  This “crusading mother desperate for a cure” thing gets old after about the first two years.  The reality of my story and the stories of countless families like mine is that we’d much rather our beloved children were typically-developing.  But instead, as one social worker reminds us, they are merely exceptional…the exception to what jost pediatricians deem “normal.”  The hard thing about this situation is it’s not a broken bone or surgery that’s been done hundreds of times.  It comes out differently in every case and we have no idea how our son will grow and mature, or in what ways he won’t.  I’ve done what people like me do.  I fiercely and unreservedly love my boy, and I try each day to encourage him and push us both a little further.  I’ve researched, I’ve worried, I’ve sobbed in the night and I’ve resolved to do better, find better and make his life the best it can be.  But despite my hard work, some good luck and the sheer force of my wanting it, I can’t change it.

This particular fact weighed heavy on me one afternoon after a speech therapy session with my now-three-year old son, whose language skills are dramatically behind his peers.   I thought, “He’s just not progressing.  How can I help him achieve normal speech?”  And so I contemplated what to do with our afternoon together that would be constructive and instructive to him, that would strengthen his skills and our bond.  I decided a visit to the public library would be good for us both.   The library is fun for him, with its puppet theater, stuffed animals, puzzles and long rows of shelves he loves to run down.  And it’s not isolating for me, which is a potential danger I face on this road.

As my mind worked furiously on this solution, we drove past my friend’s new home under construction.  The house is in an area where smaller homes have been torn down and McMansions have sprung up in their places. There are French villas, English Tudors, Cape Cod captains’ houses and then there’s Gigi’s. 

My friend Gigi’s new-construction home rises in stark contrast to her traditional neighbors.  Her contemporary design, all jutting angles and straight lines couldn’t be more different from the rest of the block, and in fact it’s dramatically different from jost homes in our town.   But there it rises, all three stories of reflecting square windows and glossy, gleaming wood trim.  I remembered when Gigi and her husband hired a builder, they joked they’d have to find someone who didn’t normally work here because after their project, the neighbors would likely run him out of town. 

But still, Gigi and her husband persevered, searching to find just the company that could bring their vision to life…the bedrooms, the kitchen, the see-through staircase running up the center of the structure.  I remembered the last time I saw it when the builders were just framing it, how awkward it looked and how stark.  Now just a short time later, the house is already magnificent and it’s not even done.

It inspired me on my drive to the library that day.  I looked at the unusual design on the street… and then back through my rearview mirror at the unusual design behind me, now snoozing comfortably in his car seat.   He sighed and shifted slightly, his angel face was relaxed and at peace.  I sighed and shifted too.

In four decades I’ve learned it’s not easy being different.  In the last two years I’ve learned what an understatement that is.  Sometimes it’s torturous when your glass and steel and concrete and wood aren’t arranged the way everybody else’s are.  But there is a soaring beauty and the undeniable gift that comes with being merely exceptional.  Gigi’s house reminded me of that.  And when I look at my son, that’s what I believe.