Walking with Christos
When I became a mother, I never really thought too far ahead. I didn’t dream about being a grandmother or attending my child’s wedding, or even high school graduation. But I did think about more immediate milestones like Christos’ first steps, his first words and holding his hand as we walked down the street.
Christos walked at 11 months on the dot. He was always very active and to this day, has the best balance of any eight year old I’ve ever seen. But even though he could run and walk quite early, Christos wanted to be carried when we were outside. By two he hated the stroller and although we could carry him a fair distance, as he got bigger, carrying him long distances became impossible, as did our strolls to the local coffee shop to grab a beverage as a family.
Just before COVID hit, we had enrolled him at Geneva Centre for Autism and we had high hopes that they could help us with some of the challenges we faced, mainly focus and communication. We knew he needed to be 1:1 in an in-person setting to really learn.
Enter March 2020 and the world changed dramatically. Geneva closed down and offered virtual classes, but for us, it wasn’t a fit. Not wanting to waste an opportunity I thought we may benefit from some coaching on how to get him to walk by himself. Never in my life did I ever think I would need coaching on walking, but there we were.
During those few months, we did make some progress and learned strategies on how to encourage him to walk in a prolonged manner and also when to call it quits. As I’ve now learned, knowing when to ‘let it go’ is also a super important skill as a parent.
Slowly but surely, he started to walk more. First with me and then with Jim. School helped because no one would carry him there. So, when the teacher asked me to volunteer on a school trip that involved him walking 30 minutes one way, I thought I better make myself available because he’ll never walk all that way all by himself. Much to my surprise, he held his classmates hand and walked the entire 30 min (!!!!) to the theatre.
My eyes couldn’t believe it. I kept telling the teachers: I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this. I’ve never seen him do this. Jim will never believe it!
I was in such disbelief that I took this unauthorized photo of Christos and his classmate holding hands as we left the school.
Seeing that gave me the confidence to encourage him to walk more. A little longer each week - to the car, to a certain point on the sidewalk, to the elevator, etc. For us, this was a huge milestone but I still had the vision of us walking down the street hand-in-hand to accomplish.
For months I reached for his hand almost every time, and slowly, every once in a while, he would hold it as we walked. Every single time he would give me a few minutes, I would close my eyes and smile and kiss his hand. I don’t know how much he cares, but I know it comforts me. In fact, these are some of my favourite moments with him. Perhaps I appreciate them more than most, because what seems like a very typical activity for a parent and child, did not come easy for us.
It’s now been a few years, and though he would still rather run down the sidewalk than walk, every now and then, I get a few moments where I feel like he needs me. Each and every time, I still close my eyes, smile and kiss his hand.
