Tomorrow there will be work, and rain, and our daughter will return to her apartment. I’ll need to vacuum, and de-COVID-ize door handles, and slay autism’s foes, and swallow disappointment over failings and disconnections and many things I am not. But just for today, Mother’s Day, I soaked in bliss.

Could I ever have imagined at age 29, when I “succumbed” to marriage, that I would have these three gifts. I could rhapsodize on each of them for paragraphs. Their gentle spirits, even Will with his quirks. Their inner light. The beauty they already have painted across the skies of their worlds, and mine.

Being wonderful, they indulged me, and I loved every moment. My choice of breakfast. Writing time. Church on TV. Late showers and a long 8 mile walk through conservation land I’ve driven by for over 28 years, and only thanks to COVID-19 been forced to discover. Surprise presents and ones I’ve wanted. Time- precious time, with them and on my own.

If life gives you what you need, I’m stunned, and grateful. Stunned that my career-driven 20’s still let me find a life-partner who put up with me and all my weirdness. Stunned that career didn’t seem so vital after the birth of a beautiful daughter, coinciding with being laid off so that I jumped off the corporate train and hung up my own shingle. Stunned that I had twins, further stunned that I could somehow learn to manage being a TwinMom – then shot in the heart when their autism turned fairy tales to mud.

Grateful for hundreds of helpers on a new trail I never though I’d enter – where a warrior-like mission to ‘eliminate the diagnosis’ – a parental code word for cure their autism – gradually faded. Grateful to the heavens that our bumbling through therapies and my desperate clinging to a search for a “cure” led us to mountain glories. Grateful that I didn’t ruin our daughter, our marriage, or myself in trying to help them. Grateful that despite the boys’ many limits, they have amazing capabilities, and over time I really think they have found balance, and peace, and on some days, happiness. Grateful that Jenn became such a lovely adult.

We are what we love. I love these three humans the most in the whole world. If I can have a fraction of the goodness inside – the perseverance, determination, and purity – my happiness will touch the sky. Like it did today.