He’s the wheel…

The spotlight has shifted. It was gradual at first, a quiet nudge, possible to look away from for some time, until it wasn’t.

Now holding our attention, commanding that we stay on it, with it, with him.

There is guilt here for the moments and the years past. Guilt in the hindsight, the obvious now links between what we missed, didn’t look at, couldn’t deal with then and what is here now. 

There is gratitude too for the way he was able to be ok, to need less, to manage when he had to. When we needed him to. While we figured out his brother and then navigated raising his sister different from the start. Gratitude for his patience with us. 

It’s his time now. The spotlight able to shift properly onto him, his needs, the layers that have built up in him. It’s time for us to figure him out and acknowledge that so much of what we knew of him in his early years was assumption. Was based on what we were told he should be. 

There is guilt that I didn’t know what to do back then to prevent these layers from forming. Guilt and a wishing that I could have prevented the pain.

But there is gratitude here too. Gratitude for what we know now, what we have experienced and practiced. Gratitude that though it is hard and painful, the road ahead will take us where we need to go for him and with him. If I just follow the spotlight, keep my eyes on him, on what he needs from me in this moment and what I need in order to be what he needs. 

He’s the wheel that’s rarely squeaked, he’s our patient, quiet, go with the flow one. Something in him is screaming now and thankfully, for all the challenge the other two have brought up in me, I have the space to listen.