Today was Ryan’s 8th grade graduation day. He has been at the same Catholic school since Pre-K4 where Mrs. Ping saved our lives. 😉 Seasoned teacher that she was she noticed the ‘signs’ in Ryan that I’d been begging doctors to take notice instead of claiming it was all me. (I’m sure some of it was me but a mother’s intuition, in my opinion, is the Holy Spirit and you just don’t ignore it.)
Witnessing Ryan in a cap and gown was extra special for me as his mother and to memorialize this moment celebrating in the feast of the Body of Christ made it epic.
“You are the Potter (and I am the Clay)”, opened the Mass along with ‘Here I am Lord’ bringing the tears that I’ve managed to keep at bay. Fr. Nick celebrated Mass wearing the vestments the kids created when they were in the 2nd grade for First Communion and Fr. Borski (our Pastor) wore the vestment during their school Mass. It is tradition for the priest celebrating the 8th grade graduation Mass to wear the vestment as well.
Fr. Nick reminded them that they are holy and their holiness will lead them into the true success that remains with us to our death and that is the success of our spirituality. Then the choir sang a song that always gets me, and I’m not sure of the title but the chorus is: “As I hold on to my faith, Jesus you are holding on to me.” Finishing that up with their Valedictorian’s quote from C.S. Lewis:
“He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.”
I thought I was done! But there was more…at the reception they had poems the kids wrote about their memories of St. Martha Catholic School. Rarely am I grasping for the proper words….but all of you who are moms who have children struggling with being ‘labled’ any of the numerous afflictions our children face these days then I think you will appreciate how this left me speechless:
I find it hard to comprehend
Our time here is about to end
And this white and red tiled floor
I won’t walk anymore.
Deep inside my cold, dark mind
Are memories I have left behind.
Sitting and waiting to decay
There they’ll stay till I’m gone away.
Those memories aren’t mine in truth
I was rather troubled in my youth.
I was a case, merely a shell.
Every day deeper into the dark I fell.
Then one morning I suddenly awoke
And was free from my autistic joke.
To realize my actions weren’t my own.
To face the persona I have sewn.
Nevertheless, that was a distant past.
A version of me never meant to last.
Here I am now, only as me containing
Someone else’s memory.
Friends, family, plays and study.
Playing at camps, slightly muddy.
Finals, projects and the usual test
Are part of the new me, the current “best”.
I’ve changed greatly, I gladly admit.
St. Martha has too changed a slight bit.
Here I grew, learned, lost and found.
This school has seen me turn around.
I may speak against this school,
And I may try to make it the fool
But, I sincerely will miss this place
My unrealized saving grace.
Ryan Deitz
I put him in God’s hands that fateful day I recognized God was in control and all I can say now is THANK GOD.
Never lose hope on your kids, especially when you place them in God’s hands.
Blessings
Shannon