Recently our Adopting Special Kids blogger, Julie, wrote an amazing post about “anniversary reactions”. Usually that term applies to our kids as they consciously or subconsciously react to specific dates they experienced loss or trauma in the past. This time, however, Julie was writing about her anniversary reaction… her processing of the past 8 years she had spent parenting her challenging child. Julie’s honest and poignant description of her personal losses as a result of her daughter’s losses really touched a chord in me.


I am at the end of an extremely long and difficult journey with Amy. Perhaps “the end” is an inappropriate description, as my daughter’s real difficulties are probably just about to begin. But the end of the time she lives under our roof. The end of any opportunities to effect any change in her whatsoever. (Frankly, I have come to realize I never really had any impact upon her… certainly we have seen no discernible change in how she operates since she joined us nearly 17 years ago.)


Although she finished her school-based courses this past semester, she has not finished the first online course, nor even started the two additional online courses she needed to complete this summer to obtain her diploma by the time we moved out of the duplexes this fall. All indications are that she is, in fact, bailing out of the Navy. She hasn’t attended meetings, she will not be able to ship out until she graduates high school, and it appears as if her “plan” is to return to Illinois and “live with friends”... friends who include some neighbors down the street from our old house. These folks, I know, have thought we were terrible parents for quite some time. They had “befriended” my daughter, of course only glimpsing the persona she wanted them to see. Either they truly did offer her a place to stay if she needed it, or she is assuming they would be only to happy to have her… but they are part of her backup plan.

To be continued

Photo credit to My Moleskine