My phrase this fall has been “mourn and move on”. How valiantly flippant of me. As some friends and I sat in Support Group (Parents of Twice-Exceptional Kids), we heard the latest and greatest pertaining to language processing disorders, dysgraphia, dyslexia…yum…give us more! As a few of us realized our kids may be grappling with a tad more than ADHD, my “2e Partner in Crime Gal Pal” and I gave each other the “Well Hell…just one more thing” look. She and I can have entire conversations with just our eyes. “Having a 2e morning?” “Have you been in the School Psychologist’s office already?” “Are you thinking tutor switch, therapist switch, or med switch?” All of it, just with our eyebrows across a PTA meeting room.

We’ve got the whole “been there, done that” routine down pat. We like to pretend mourning is a luxury we can no longer afford. Who has that kind of time? It’s an innocent lie we like to tell ourselves, because escaping the reality of Special Needs children requires emotional blinders from time to time. But a few weeks ago, I had to face that lie right in its ugly face. Mourning, for me, goes down easiest in tiny bites. Tiny, itsy-bitsy, microscopic bites.

It usually starts with a downhill slide for Sara, when I watch her mood crumble around the edges, ending with a grand implosion. It comes in the form of refusal to do homework, migraines, refusal to walk into school, random guessing on tests, and even after studying and exhibiting complete mastery…a total failure to perform at school. Time to wrestle the most current demon, whatever it may be. Test anxiety? Math tutoring? ADHD meds not working? Autoimmune disorder flaring up? BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. As we never get to fight the same demon twice, I took my first line of action and met with Sara’s teacher.

Oh yes, it was academic this time around, merely masquerading as headaches. (Trying a new approach to those nasty headaches tomorrow…if it works, I’ll share it here.) Thank God for amazing and gifted teachers who never stop learning, because she came armed with DATA. Sara’s LD in Math is rare, focal in nature, and yet quite a wall considering it’s math dyslexia. Sara cannot memorize math facts. She understands addition, subtraction, etc, but she cannot commit them to memory. We’ve done drills, tutors, and years upon years of daily practice. The time has come to accept Dyscalculia’s ugly truth: Sara may never be able to memorize 2+2=4. She can set up 5th grade level pre-algebra problems. She has the logic capabilities of kids 2 years beyond her age. She can dissect a shark, and tell me a better analogy to Chiropractic care is rather than a stabilizing rod, she thinks it’s more of a pulley with uneven balance. But she cannot tell you from memory that 5-3=2. She understands it, but she cannot consistently RECALL it.

So the unmentionable has finally been said: Sara needs to have a calculator with her at all times. Sara will always need a calculator. Sara will not be able to go onto Middle School, High School, or College without the accommodation of a calculator. She will no longer be required to take math tests without them, and she is no longer doing conventional math fact drills at home. She’s still doing easier variations of math drills, as we’re hoping to strengthen her number sense (and protect her ability to understand quantity), but she will no longer take tests without manipulatives in her hands. If she can’t SEE it, she can’t CALCULATE it.

It was a happy meeting. It was lead by an amazing educator who has read everything she can find on Dyscalculia. It takes courage to lead a child down a new path, one not yet encountered at her school. It takes guts to tell a family to give up on conventional expectations, and go forward with assistance. We were, and are, extremely grateful. We walked out relieved. Sara was SO relieved. No more of her trying to hide these challenges…she can BE Sara, and that is a good thing. We quickly ordered a blingy calculator, put her name on it, and dubbed it her new best friend. To quote Einstein, we’re no longer trying to teach this fish to climb a tree. (Unless that tree is fully submerged in water, and then CLIMB little fish, CLIMB MY GIRL!)

AND THEN, and only then, did I begin to grieve. It always starts as a dark, nagging and vague feeling, in my gut. The Universe had changed direction, but the periphery wasn’t clear. My mood worsens until I begin to take it out on those around me. Greg’s does too, but he refuses to acknowledge he’s sad. HE LOVES HIS SARA! SHE IS PERFECT! HER TEACHERS ARE WONDERFUL! WE ARE SO LUCKY! And we are. But we’re a bit sad too. If we don’t eventually own up to our sadness at these bends in the road, it will eat us alive.

By Friday evening, I forced the issue with ‘ole Math-Expert Daddy. It’s OK to nab a perfect math SAT score, and be a little concerned about your daughter not being able to ADD. NOPE! PERFECT! His Sara-Bear can go through life not being able to compute in her head, and it’s nothing to worry about! She’s AMAZING, just as she is! And she is. He’s right. She’s Sara, and she was meant to be this way, at this time, with us at her side. We know this. But it’s OK to be a bit sad too. He finally blurted out I was way too passionate about decorating the guest room and it was getting on his nerves. To which we both had a good laugh, because well? That’s just silly.

We hung our heads for a moment. We agreed…a little sad is OK. Even if we’ve been there, done that. Even if we’re the masters of mourn and move on. Sad is a reasonable response to the worry our child will need to go forward in life learning to advocate that even smart kids can’t all multiply. Put that on a tshirt. From there, I thought I was OK. I thought I’d processed it, even though I’m still holding my breath as we await our first formal accommodation meeting, and await Sara’s first test-taking adventure within her new world.

But as I mentioned earlier, my grief is best eaten one bite at a time. I stopped by Goodwill last night to buy a costume for Sara’s Hero Report, and as I was checking out, I noticed the cashier was wearing a thumb splint.

Me: Did you injure your hand? I have that same splint for my thumb.

Cashier: No, this is a birth injury. It’s permanent.

Me: Oh, I’m sorry…I didn’t realize it wasn’t a Spica splint.

Cashier (with such a quiet voice and forlorn expression): It’s OK. I’ve worn it since birth. This injury is PERMANENT.

I was suddenly unable to speak. It was like the air was wicked from my lungs, and my usual casual ability to be chatty in all situations was a distant memory. I’m not even sure I managed a smile as I said “thank you”. I quickly drove home and collapsed onto the couch, and retold the story to Greg, barely able to keep my voice from cracking.

Me: She said the words “It’s permanent”, Greg. It’s permanent. It’s never going to go away.

Greg: No, it’s probably not.

Finally, those stubborn, far-too-easily avoided tears fell. I kept them at bay through all of Thanksgiving, even after my Dad asked if Sara was OK. Even after he asked if I was worried about the future. Even after I told my friends (who, bless their patient hearts, can no more comprehend the pernicious nature of a math LD than I can, leaving them to do their best at nodding and smiling). Crying always comes later, when I least expect it.

Letting go of the hope she’ll outgrow this? Harder than I anticipated, but then again…it’s forcing me to get real with my own coping mechanisms surrounding her attitude. I’d better learn to calm down and pace this out, because her academic road is no longer a marathon; it’s going to be an Ironman instead. It’s healthier and more productive for us to move forward with this mindset, looking for long-term solutions, as opposed to banging our heads against a wall, trying to fix that which may never change. It was worth every ounce of effort to teach her to knock down the wall, and to a great extent, she has. She can compute, after all. She just can’t remember where she put answers. Sometimes, she tosses one out, and for a second, the hope rises up. But then, in a blink, it’s gone again. Thank God for the teachers who at least got the answers in there! Because of them, she can WORK the calculator!

Sara has Dyscalculia. She’s always had it. She will always have it. It’s permanent. I’m supposed to insert some quippy Doogie-Howser-esque piece of wisdom here that makes us all feel better about Learning Differences, ADHD, and parenthood in general. But life isn’t a sitcom, and Doogie Howser didn’t have Dyscalculia. Wicked sense of comedic timing and a profoundly gifted actor, but I’m guessing he can do things like…DIVIDE SMALL NUMBERS FROM MEMORY.

So here’s what I’ve got: Parenthood isn’t for wimps, so this is no time to be a pussy. Now we adapt. Now we man-up. We go into the unknown armed with the one thing we’ll need: our love and acceptance of Sara is permanent. Or, in a more succinct summary from Greg, “She’s totally normal in the grand scheme of life, and we have every reason to believe she’ll grow up to have a normal life. Everything she’ll ever need has already been covered by technology. Lori, she’s not an asshole. Assholes have miserable lives, and they don’t know why. You can give a kid a calculator, a thousand Apps, and an iPhone that tells her the time, but you can’t fix an asshole.”

So there you have it: Don’t be a pussy. Don’t be an asshole. You may find more eloquent parenting advice, but it will be no less accurate, or permanent. Hang in there with me, my friends. This ride only gets more interesting evra’-single-DAY…