Chapter 14

Short term goals, followed by big dreams….having faith

I spent every day with the morning prayer, “Lord, please help my daughter to stay calm without a panic attack today.” If it was a good day, I would feel so relieved; if not… I would go to sleep hoping for a happy tomorrow! One night, when I sat looking at the stars and talking to my special educator friend, she said that although she was not a mother yet, she could feel my pain! She also said that one day she wished to be a mother like me! This lifted my spirits instantly….

In the beginning of 2008, I started volunteering to work with children having varying needs in the junior section of my daughter’s school. This gave me good exposure and understanding in addition to immense amount of satisfaction. Getting into a routine of work outside home, with both children in their schools was keeping me fruitfully occupied.

My daughter was now in the hands of an extremely patient, experienced and compassionate educator who remained a mother figure for her for the next 3 years. She had a few long meetings with me, discussing the strategies to calm my daughter, when agitated and the possible triggers. Every educator teaching her a different subject connected with me and we started working together. Medicines to control her anxiety were weaned off gradually and she started becoming calmer. God’s love is so wonderful!

I remember the day when my daughter’s history teacher called me to share that she had answered 2 questions correctly in her class. She was showing interest in learning geographical facts as well! Her lessons were being adapted in terms of volume and with less complex facts. Since reading, spelling and memory were her strengths, she started learning fast and recalling better! Grammar concepts which followed a pattern were easy for her to pick up. Computer classes were honing her strengths as well! She started typing well, learnt formatting and PowerPoint! For Mathematics we had already switched over to functional curriculum.

My daughter started appearing for cycle tests held on every Wednesday and started scoring good marks! After 4 years of rollercoaster journey in middle school, she was learning well and performing quite well too! I looked forward to PTMs to discuss and understand the various perspectives and collectively plan to help her progress even more.

We had a tentative plan of training her in some vocation after she would complete middle school! But seeing her progress in academics, the team of special educators felt that she could be promoted to senior school and trained to appear for NIOS examination. This was an amazing news and a big surprise for us…. to dream BIG.

‘Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.’