Hi everyone!
I’ve been sending out a whole bunch of open-faced sandwiches, focusing on my parents’ generation, the upper slice. They have, after all, given me lots of material this year.
But so has my son. This week, he is front and center in my mind—not just because he had his wisdom teeth removed Tuesday, and Jon and I have been giving him painkillers and antibiotics around the clock.
Max is a senior in high school now, and so much is happening for him, but not in the ways that Jon and I experienced. This pathway is different, and sometimes walking it with him helps me see life anew, as you will understand if you continue reading below.
But first, I want to wish each of you a sweet Christmas and to thank you for joining me for this journey in the Sandwich Season.
Peace and joy to you and yours,
Sarah
P.S. The Charlie Brown tree explanation I promised last week will have to wait.
This tiny miracle
Some days when my son was very small, I praised him for breathing.
We adopted him at age three from a tough situation, from the land of Not Enough—not enough food, not enough love, not enough safety. For years—yes, I mean years—not much went well. Delays, tantrums and challenges too many to mention here.
From Day One, I wanted to encourage him, to will him toward progress and into a happy, or at least a neutral, childhood.
And some days the only positive thing I could latch onto was the fact that he (and I) continued to breathe.
Since elementary school, Max has had an individualized education plan (IEP) that documents his learning challenges and how the school district says it will accommodate his particular needs. This IEP includes special services like assistance with speech and language, and Max’s very own graduation requirements. It includes modifications, like “seating near the teacher,” “shortened assignments” and “reduce size of groups.”
Max is now a senior in high school. His next steps look nothing like mine did at his age, when my parents’ mailbox was stuffed with college admissions material and scholarship forms. Though I couldn’t see it at the time, the questions we batted around our kitchen table back then were relatively straightforward: Where should I go, what should I study, and how should we pay for it?
These days our mailbox is void of college brochures but full of paperwork—updates, questions and forms from county, state and federal departments. Some of it offers directions for Max’s path into adulthood, but the light is still pretty dim.
Last Friday, we met with his IEP team to discuss next steps after 12th grade. I felt disheartened—but not surprised—to hear that Max’s reading, writing and math skills remain far below grade level.
And yet … we also heard so many positives: He’s making friends, his vocabulary is growing, his smile lights up a room, and he co-captains the school’s adaptive floor hockey team. The IEP team seemed optimistic that he will find his way forward after high school. I want the picture to be clearer.
Recently Max joined his grandma’s church choir. Every Wednesday evening, my mother-in-law picks him up at our house, and together they go to learn music with a few dozen mostly gray- and white-haired members of her Lutheran congregation.
Max barely reads music and still struggles to read words. But he has a resonant voice and an expansive vocal range that he exercises in the shower, from the depths of the ocean to the top of a mountain, nearly every single morning.
Last Sunday, he rolled out of bed early and robed up with the rest of the church choir to sing in the church’s Christmas cantata. By the time Jon and I arrived at church and squeezed into a pew halfway back, Max was up on the steps, surrounded by the other singers, black music folder in hand.
I watched him sing—the same words at the same time as the other men in his section. I watched him turn pages—at the same time as everyone else, one after another, ninety-one pages of music altogether. He appeared totally focused and never once tuned out, never once shut down, never once threw anything in frustration.
In my world, that is what a miracle looks like.
Come and see this tiny miracle, sang the choir. Come and see his holy Child.
Of course they were inviting us into the presence of Jesus, but I kept thinking of the tiny miracles all around us. My eyes wandered over the faces of the other choir members, my mind recalling the few stories I knew: one making music despite a harrowing battle with cancer, another doing so after surviving a tragic car accident. How many tiny miracles are standing before us, sitting all around us? I wondered.
Among those singing with Max was my eighth grade English teacher, Sharon Nelson. She recently emailed me a scene she had observed after one of the choir’s rehearsals:
“After choir, as (an older woman) was struggling to manage the move out of her row and down the steps, I noted your son step down from his row and come alongside her,” she wrote. “She took his arm, and the two of them slowly descended the choir loft. He was patient, steady and careful. She thanked him at the bottom and off he stepped.”
Really? This kid who usually refuses to help me carry groceries? Who rolls his eyes at my requests to match and fold socks? I wrote back to her how grateful I was that she would share this story with me, and I thanked her that she and her fellow choir members have taken Max into their group.
She wrote back: “I believe that the gift of an intergenerational community is the brace and embrace we all need to thrive.”
The brace and embrace.
Max is certainly feeling it. But look—yet another miracle: My son is not just the beneficiary of the choir’s goodwill. In their midst, he too is learning to brace and embrace others.
This Christmas season, Max is the miracle I will remember, his eyes intent on the music, lips moving in time amid a sea of maroon choir robes, sheets of music slipping to the floor like snow.
(P.S. Max approved this message.)
Share your thoughts
Have you experienced a tiny miracle?
Thank you for sharing your tiny miracles. Beautiful 😍
Thank you so much for sharing this