{"id":22892,"date":"2023-10-01T12:29:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T16:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=22892"},"modified":"2023-10-01T12:38:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T16:38:01","slug":"first-lasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2023\/10\/first-lasts\/","title":{"rendered":"First Lasts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"js-ad sticky-leaderboard-ad sticky-leaderboard-ad--sticky\">\n<div id=\"client_ad_dfp_lb\" class=\"ad ad--leaderboard ad--styled-margin ad--preview\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<header class=\"header\">\n<nav class=\"nav\"><\/nav>\n<\/header>\n<nav class=\"secondary-nav secondary-nav--is-displayed\"><\/nav>\n<div class=\"styles_FeaturedMedia__rAu_E\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-22893\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-400x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-400x533.jpg 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Summer-2023-Part-1-008-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>Call this the summer of \u201cfirst lasts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>My son Justin, who is twenty, profoundly autistic and non-verbal, will graduate from his beloved private autism school on June 14th, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>It will be a day of joy, and on my part, many tears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>Also, much wine and chocolate.<\/p>\n<p>This summer I went to his last swim day observation, which entailed me watching him enjoying his school\u2019s pool as I struggle every summer to get my son in mine. Today, I sent him off to his last day of summer school ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>Yes, ever.<\/p>\n<p>There will be many \u201cfirst lasts\u201d this year. Last Fall Fun Day. Last birthday party. Last IEP meeting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>I actually enjoy the latter.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I know this is weird.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>I hope I will manage my emotions through all these milestones with grace, but I\u2019m not making any promises.<\/p>\n<p>Justin will do beautifully. Much better than his Mama.<\/p>\n<p>My solace is I\u2019ve already visited his adult day program options, made my connections, ranked my choices. The reality is I will be fortunate to get an offer, and it may not be until months after he graduates.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m mentally gearing up for that too, and grateful my other kid will be driving independently by then.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, things have always eventually worked out for this family. Perhaps not in the way I would have wanted with my insane amounts of planning, but they have worked out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>I\u2019m keeping my fingers crossed our luck continues.<\/p>\n<p>I know Justin is not aware of what is coming down the pike. He does not know this is his last day of summer school, that the days of what I consider to be his extended childhood are in countdown mode.<\/p>\n<p>I am grateful for that.<\/p>\n<p>I will start preparing him as best I can, with pictures and stories and an explanation that he will be going to a new program. I will not convey my profound sadness that after fourteen years, time is up.<\/p>\n<p>I will just hope he welcomes the change, and understands it\u2019s not just a brief sojourn somewhere else, and that he will not eventually return to school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p>I will never know if he will understand this or not. His comprehension cannot be conveyed by a nod.<\/p>\n<p>But I will continue to have faith in this kid\u2019s remarkable ability to adapt, to transition, his desire to be happy.<\/p>\n<p>I will always have faith in him.<\/p>\n<p>And today, as I hug him when he gets off his bus from his first\/last day of summer school, I\u2019ll remind myself of exactly that.<\/p>\n<p><em>For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"styles_HTMLContent__LDG2k\">\n<p><em>Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2023\/10\/first-lasts\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Call this the summer of \u201cfirst lasts.\u201d My son Justin, who is twenty, profoundly autistic and non-verbal, will graduate from his beloved private autism school on June 14th, 2024. It will be a day of joy, and on my part, many tears. Also, much wine and chocolate. This summer I went to his last swim [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294],"class_list":["post-22892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5Xe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}