Spouses Should Never Stop Talking

Follow your own path

I have mentioned in an earlier post how women are in my culture are expected to just endure marriage if there’s no job to be obtained from it. I remember attending Mothers’ Union meetings with my mother at her church and women were being counseled on how to handle conflict in marriage. The pastor’s wife was disbursing advice that I thought was really bad. I unfortunately was too small a fish to say anything against it, lest I embarrassed my mother and risked getting her excommunicated.  The reverend’s wife said if there was a problem between the women and their husbands, they were supposed to go to the kitchen, drink some water and hold it in their mouths to avoid saying anything. “Men don’t like being challenged, and you can’t have two bulls in one kraal,” she said. She reminded women to remember to take a subservient role to their husbands to protect their marriages.

That little sermon disappointed me. Women don’t get married to make men happy. Marriage should be for mutual enjoyment, and you can’t be happy unless you are clear to each other about your likes and dislikes. If women don’t speak out, they will just have men treading on their toes and suffer in silence and that’s not how I want any woman to spend their lives. What if the men don’t even know that they have done wrong and continue disappointing their wives? How will they know if the wives are going to keep mouthfuls of water without speaking out? I doubt there’s any woman who wants to spend her life that way. There’s too much emphasis on women protecting the institution of marriage without protecting themselves. Why must women put so much value on something that makes them sad? And who says discussing something with your spouse is turning yourself into a bull?I just don’t get that logic. If men want to be the kings then they should know that for every king there’s a queen, and the queens are their wives who should be accorded the respect due to queens.

I think marriages fail because couples don’t talk to each other enough. People just play scenarios in their heads and make conclusions, usually the wrong ones instead of just sitting down with your other half and get the answers you want. Many people believe marriages fail because of nagging women. Nagging becomes nagging when the woman is talking and no one is listening or the man is unwilling to engage his wife. Contrary to popular belief, I’m of the opinion that leaving things unsaid doesn’t bring peace into the house. Instead creates rifts and causes strife.

I think couples should try to talk politely to each other. Of course, sometimes tempers will flare. Whether one addresses a problem respectfully or nicely depends on the nature and degree of offense. It is as ill-advised to yell as it is to keep quiet when something is bugging you. If you yell when angry, you end up looking like a fool. And if you also keep quiet when offended, I think you also look like a fool. For the sake of peace, I think people should cool down before addressing an inflammatory subject. What helps me is taking a walk or a jog, even with the offender, and then sitting down to talk. There has to be reciprocal willingness to iron out the problem, or else the offended party ends up getting really incensed and there won’t be peace in the house. I dream of a world in which couples talk to each other, regardless of circumstances, if not for themselves, then to set a good example for their children.

The day that a couple stops talking is the day their relationship starts dying a slow and painful death. When a couple stops talking to each other, then they start talking about each other in my little corner of the world my spouse, and when I told her, she thought I was strange. I don’t come to a serious discussion without my notebook. I clearly jot down the issues I would like to discuss. Then as my husband speaks, I will listen attentively and furiously jot down notes when necessary. This is so that I give him a chance to have his say without me interjecting and ruin the discussion. I think a lot of times people interject not because they are rude or impatient. They are afraid they will forget the point they would like to put across, but it ends up being viewed otherwise. And that is why I take notes of everything I would like to talk about when I get my chance to speak. Jotting down notes also ensures that everything that I want to say is said in one sitting. If I don’t say something and afterwards I think it’s of paramount importance, we would have to sit down again and talk, which I do not want to do. People take notes at board and school meetings because they feel those are important discussions. I also think matrimonial discussions are even more important than board meetings, which is why I take notes.

At the end of the day, I don’t think people should stick to prescriptions from kitchen parties, churches, aunts or books. You should just follow your own path until you find a formula that works. I think people should talk to each other and find what makes their partners tick and what ticks them off. What works for some doesn’t work for others, such is life. What works for me is talking. And of course, with a little help from the notebook.

Below are how some of my female friends said they dealt with their spouses if there was a problem, below that the men speak on how they want to be approached when they are in the wrong:

Woman 1:  I usually keep quiet because the moment I open my mouth I end up saying the wrong things. I will even insult his mother. Yes I mean it. I will insult his mother! Like the saying goes, silence is golden. It’s however not the best solution because I will hold a grudge.

Woman 2: I used to get so angry if he did something I was unhappy about and would immediately explode but that always led to fireworks. This was soon after we got married and now looking back I think we were all trying to stamp our authority. But now I guess as I grow older I handle things differently. If something happens that I’m not happy about instead of exploding,  I find it easier to remove myself and when I am calm I address the issue and say what I was not happy about. And have seen it’s more effective because then I am able to put across my point. It is also important to choose your battles. You realise some things aren’t that important. 

Woman 3: I do both depending on circumstances. There are times when keeping peace is possible but when I am pushed to the edge I scream at him and we fight and quickly get past the matter. 

Woman 4: if my hubby does something that makes me unhappy I tell him. I do this because I know bottling up hard feelings destroys relationships.  I normally like to wait for a time when we are both calm and relaxed. Bringing it up when you are both upset or one of you is upset leads to fights. 

The Notebook

Woman 5: I usually wait until I calm down then talk to him when I am calm. Otherwise every time we confront each other there and then we light an inferno. But keeping quiet, no, I will have to get answers. 

Woman 6: when I’m wronged I have learnt that confrontation does not work. Instead it makes things even worse. I try to control my temper and point out his mistake, expressing how I feel. What I never do is shout because once you do that no one will ever listen, even to the facts. Sometimes if I talk to him and realise it makes him angry, I park the issue for tomorrow. One mistake I did is I slapped him in front of his children, my sister and her husband 10 years ago but I’m not even sure if he forgave me. He expressed his embarrassment and even cried in front of me. So I think it is best to cool down rather than cause more harm.

Woman 7: when there’s a problem I sit down and think about everything around it quietly. By the time I finish, I would have an answer. I control the environment in my house. It’s all in the art of talking; you can discuss difficult things without shouting at each other.  If the problem is too big, I find an older and neutral person to mediate. Sometimes you need to act like a fool by just acting as if nothing has happened. Life is too short, let everyday be blissful and be each other’s best friend.

Man 1: There are issues you would want to wait until you’re ready to talk about it and things you want sorted and done with. But in most cases I don’t mind being asked in a manner that shows a bit of respect of course understanding her degree of anger. But all issues need to be talked about if I have to apologise then I do and sometimes I start the conversation before she even asks because I will have wronged her. 

Man 2: I want her to ask me about it. I would rather have the issue discussed and done away with, get the lessons if any and move ahead. I would also prefer she cools down first. And then tell me where and how I wronged her. If it happens that it’s a misunderstanding, I would then have a chance to explain what I meant. Either way, I would apologise for having hurt her. My main wish would be for the issue to be resolved and put to rest.

Man 3: I’d rather she asks me. It should be in an environment that we are alone and should be done with soberness. I would do the same for her. 

Man 4: I prefer her to ask and she should be very diplomatic when she does so, because if she’s not careful in the way she asks the situation can get worse. To be honest, though, it depends on the issue/offence. With certain offences I’m the one that runs to say, “Sorry, dear”, but with the others hahahaha! 

Man 5: I think it all depends on an individual. Personally I would wish she doesn’t speak about it even though I know it’s hard. Striking the iron while it’s hot sometimes has dire consequences. You might not get the truth. He might tell you what you want to hear, something that won’t hurt you, only for you to find later that if you had asked the other way the truth would have come out. Remember we know when we are guilty and if we want to save our marriages we would do anything, including lying, until things have cooled down.

Obviously I would want to defend myself whether guilty or not. It’s hard for us men to plead guilty, more so if it’s still fresh. So it’s best for my woman to be tactful. If she wants to deal with it sooner she should not try to make me feel like a child. I know I’m guilty so what I want to have at that moment is someone to be on my side. Don’t be angry when you confront me. Try to find out why I did that without being dramatic, maintain your coolness, make me regret doing it by being polite and understanding. That would really awaken my conscience. Do it respectfully. Even we modern men like women who make us feel like kings even when we are wrong. Treat me the way you treat your father. 

So there you have it! The few men that I spoke to said they didn’t mind being asked because they also want issues resolved. It boggles the mind why women keep encouraging each other to be quiet when offended. What intrigued me most about this discussion was how all the men wanted to be approached diplomatically after doing wrong. It’s a bit strange how men’s feelings should always take precedence even when they are in the wrong. I had to ask Man 4, “You want your wife to approach you diplomatically, but do you offend diplomatically?” I just had to ask, but I do agree that for a discussion to be fruitful, people need to be calm. It doesn’t feel good to have someone who offended you dictating how you should react, but I’d support anything that leads to people talking towards peace.

Peace and Love <3

My Long and Winding Road Getting Dolled Up

My first makeup lesson came from my late beloved uncle, Sekuru Aggrey, may his soul rest in peace. Someone had been kind enough to paint my nails and he took one horrified look at my fingers and said, “You painted your nails!” He asked me to sit down so that he could explain a few things to me. “Cutex (back then all nail polish was referred to as cutex) and lipstick are used as a statement to men. In Shona (my home language) they have the same name – Musandizeze. Loosely translated, Musandizeze means Oh please, don’t be hesitant, come hither, I’m easy! From that day onwards, I never viewed cutex and lipstick the same again, thanks uncle for ruining my life.

At this ripe age, it would be weird to a lot of people that I only just started wearing makeup. Part of it is because of innuendos I grew up hearing from those around me regarding the subject. No one ever really sat down with me to talk about makeup, except my uncle, and I think it’s an important conversation that girls ought to have with someone who’s knowledgeable on the politics of the subject.

In the township we lived in were a lot of prostitutes. We actually knew them. Rusape is a small town so everyone knew them and what they did. We weren’t allowed to mention their trading name, which in the vernacular is mahure, derived from whores, or pfambi, probably stemming from kufamba (walking). Therefore, pfambi would mean those who walk (the streets). We were only allowed to call them vanhu vekubhawa, Beer hall people.  So if my sisters and I wore something skimpy, or sat inappropriately with our legs open, instead of crossing them to cover up, my mother would say we were sitting like vanhu vekubhawa. I just knew the beer hall people but I didn’t quite know about the transactions that took place there. I just thought they went there to drink beer and dance, activities which I also began to associate with immorality.

We could identify the beer hall people from the way they dressed – bright nail polish, high heels, and pants. They wore bright lipstick on faces that were plastered with foundation incongruous to their skin tones and reeked of cheap perfume. That rendered credence to SekuruAggrey’s proclamation about lipstick and cutex.

As I grew up, I slowly realised that wearing pants had nothing to do with your morals. If anything, pants actually covered up more than skirts. The lipstick one must have stayed stuck to the back of my mind, because I only bought my very first lipstick in my early 30s, but all the lipsticks I got would always get lost or damaged without being used. My sister, Tadiwa, gave me a lip gloss in 2003. I still have it. 

On the day of my bridal shower, I rocked up at the venue with nothing but vanishing cream on my face. My cousins’ cousin,Tapiwa, whisked me to a spare bedroom to powder my face and zhoozhed it up with eyeliner, lipstick and I don’t remember what else. When I walked back to the lounge where a number of people were sitting, there were a few ooohs and aaahs at the remarkable transformation. Afterwards, my cousin’s sister-in-law, Joyce, remarked to my new husband how pretty I looked with makeup. He agreed I did look pretty and asked for the breakdown of the cost of keeping me looking that way. Upon receiving it, he immediately proclaimed, “I think she’s pretty with or without makeup,” his fist tightening. I stupidly believed him.

I did take care of my skin by occasionally cleansing, toning and moisturizing, but would never wear makeup after that. I concentrated more onfragrances because I liked to smell nice. Now I want to smell nice AND look nice.

One of the bags I made

For my wedding, my high school friend, Mudiwa, paid for my makeup, I hadn’t even made arrangements for that. If she hadn’t thought of it, my mother-in-law’s church choir which sang as I walked down the aisle would have had to singHere Comes Plain Jane. My ears only got pierced two weeks before the wedding after I had failed to find clip-on earrings and only kept coming across exquisite ones that required piercing. My sister got keloids after some backstreet piercing and I was scared of having them too. Since getting my ears pierced, I will never pass the earring section of any shop. And there’s always a pair that matches a clothing item or handbag at home.Speaking of handbags, I never carried any. I would just wear pants with as many pockets as possible to stuff everything I needed, and a bra to stuff my phone in. If I needed a bag, I’d carry one that I made for myself because a proper handbag would look bizarre with jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. I wasn’t even trying to look Boho, I wasn’t following any trend, I was just being me. My mother would always buy handbags and ask me to carry them on the basis that it would make me look like a lady. Until now, I still struggle with handbags even though I do carry them around, and I still make my own bags sometimes.

I only started using makeup consistently after a good friend said I should wear some, not too much but enough to make me look like a girl and not one of the boys. It’s a miracle I managed to get so many dates in my heyday. Those guys, bless their souls, must have genuinely loved me for me to see past all that plainness. It also explains why I had so many male friends who treated me like one of them and always introduced me as their sister and I’d go, “Sister! Huh?” in my mind. It must have been an if-it-looks-like-a-boy-and-dresses-like-a-boy-then-it-should-be-treated-like-a-boy kind of thing. Maybe I didn’t feel the urge to wear makeup because I spent time with them thus had no inspiration. Or maybe I ended up hanging around them to avoid being around dolled up girls.Going to a Catholic girls boarding school where we were forced to keep short hair and where we spent time with nuns who we thought were super cool might also have thrown a spanner into the makeup works. My graduation pictures at the University of Zimbabwe have me unadorned as usual, with just horrible lines drawn by a cheap eyebrow pencil on untrimmed eyebrows.

When I become pregnant with my daughter, I had this sudden compulsion to wear makeup but had no idea where to start. A friend recommended Avon products but I couldn’t find anyone selling them in my area and decided to be an Avon Representative too. Having so many cosmetics around me was an overwhelming experience. I got a lot of freebies and sold a lot of the stuff – to myselfJ. I had so much fun I was like a pig in shit.

I had always believed what pastors at church say about beauty – that the external type was useless while beauty of the heart was what should be celebrated and what we should all work towards. I remember one day in primary school when a teacher calledMrMapani, may his soul rest in peace, came to assembly with two cups. One was smeared with mud on the outside while the other was clean. He then asked which of the cups we would pick for ourselves. We all pointed at the clean one. He then tipped the cups over to show the inside. The one that was clean on the outside had mud inside while the one that had mud outside was squeaky clean. “So you see it’s not the beauty that we see with our eyes that’s important. We should strive for beauty of the heart,” he preached.

Now that I’m older and wiser, I realise that’s not exactly true. Yes, it’s good to be a morally outstanding citizen, but there’s also nothing wrong with enhancing you physical appearance. Looking good gets you places, at least most of the time. If you are a woman and would like to make it in life, you have to push harder to look beautiful inside and out. More often than not, if you push too hard you might end up without the internal beauty but nobody is really looking at that half the time. Society does judge a book by its cover. There’s a certain way people view you when you look good, you are more favourable and look clued up. I realise, however, that getting dolled up is not for everyone. It’s certainly not for me. I do try to look presentable, but I’ve never been an image-driven kind of person, the one that stops traffic. I kind of just blend in with the walls most of the time. And that’s fine, I guess. We were not all born to stand out. But I have finally caught on; I know makeup makes people look good, it makes me look and feel good. My friend Namatayi said it right when she said, “It has been proven from a tender age that the more beautiful kids tend to get the most attention and affection, even becoming the teacher’s favourite compared to the rather plain child.”

I want to be as good a human being as I can be, so I will keep striving for internal beauty and I will also keep working on the external type.I will doll myself up sometimes if I have to because I’ve seen how it makes me feel good and boosts my confidence. My uncle was wrong, lipstick and nail polish aren’t for beer hall people, but I will not be a slave to appearances. I will not be ashamed of walking around the mall without makeup. I was created in God’s image and I think He didn’t really do a bad job!

Help That Comes With a Price Tag

There are people who make us want to run a mile when they offer to help us out because we know we will never hear the end of it. Every willing and unwilling audience will be informed of how we would never have made it without that help. We will forever be held at ransom, expected to crawl around our benefactors, never forgetting for a moment who helped us along the way, that we would be nothing without them. When we have achieved something great and are standing on the podium, our sponsors will be there below us with the cheering masses. They will be watching us, searching our faces for the gratitude due to them with that look, the look that says, “Don’t you ever forget if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be standing up there!”  That look will clip your wings and chop your self-esteem into smithereens until it is at the very bottom of the barrel.

We were all born with different gifts, things that we do effortlessly while others struggle at the same. Giving is one of those gifts. Some people give because they care and it is in their nature to help out where possible. Others get heartbroken when they take something that belongs to them and give it to someone else. They spend years thinking of that moment when they gave something substantial to someone. I, however, believe like an art, giving wholeheartedly can be learned. In the same way that we have to train to fit into certain professions, we can also train ourselves to give without counting the cost. Not everything should be in dollars and cents.

Receiving gifts or help from some people is like selling our souls to the devil. When those people wrong you, you’re not allowed to speak out. Yours is to remember that once upon a time you had nothing and they bailed you out. They become your handlers. So sometimes we might have to choose whether to just do without help we so desperately need and fail to attain certain goals or accept the help that comes with a staggering price tag attached, and have our backers make song and dance about their invaluable contribution to our lives. Now I get why Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe speaks so vehemently against being too keen to receive Western aid. Sometimes it’s better to starve than to take your begging bowl to people who then go to tell it from high rising buildings that you are a charity case. Accepting help from certain quarters strongly resembles constantly having an axe hanging over our heads.

Giving should come from the heart and should never be for self- aggrandizement. My mother told me of times when she struggled to come up with school fees, yet she soldiered on and ensured all the five of us went to school, well-fed and groomed, without ever asking for or accepting help. She said a number of people were aware of the hardships and offered to help, but she politely turned them down. I asked why she hadn’t just accepted the help so that she wouldn’t have to struggle so much. Mom said most people never allowed you to forget when they helped you, and some would openly demand things from you several decades down the line, which would equate to demanding repayment. In all likelihood they will milk you dry, taking much more than they ever gave.

I’ve been blessed with many generous people in my life. People who would happily walk the length and breadth of the earth just to ensure I’m comfortable without ever feeling the compulsion to make mental calculations of how much they’ve sacrificed. My mother, some friends, and a few other people come to mind.

I have received help whenever I needed it, be it financial, emotional, or other.I believe God has always kept me in the hollow of his hands even during times I thought he had turned his back on me, never allowing me to be too desperate. He has always placed angels without wings on my path, the people who have helped me selflessly and unconditionally through difficult moments. These are the people that I think about when an opportunity for me to help somebody else arises.  I never hold back when I can afford to help because I’ve had selfless people also not holding back on me. May God help me to never make anyone that I’ve assisted feel they owed me because I’ve reminded them through my words or actions that they do. May He also cushion me from being made to feel small by those that have helped me.

Happy Birthday Victor!!

 My son has turned nine today. Finally!After all the hype he’s been creating since the 23^rd November when his baby sister turned 1. Because he was talking about it every day, my excitement about his birthday is palpable. There are no big plans, but I will pull out all the stops to make it memorable. We ordered cake, I will cook up a storm and try to include everything on his wish list, and I got him one of the things he wanted in his present bag. I will buy at a later stage those I couldn’t find on short notice. I’m excited because it means a lot to me to see him grow. We have come a very long way to get here, and I’m grateful to God for not turning his back on us.

Victor was diagnosed with autism in June 2010, after I had shed lakes of tears and visited multitudes of medicalspecialist to find out why he wasn’t talking. Every new year comes with new challenges that sometimes ripmy faith to shreds and make mequestion whether God is really there, watching me struggle and doing nothing about it. There are also breakthroughs that drive me delirious and make me believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Because of the mixture of bad and good, I guess I will always blow hot and cold about my son, never sure whether to laugh or cry.

Unlike other moms, I don’t get too excited about the future. I’m petrified of it because I have no idea what it is going to bring my way. Society isn’t very kind to people with special needs and I fear for my son in the big bad world. Whatever cruel deed he suffers because of his condition will be a dagger through my heart. On a day like today, I get very pensive and emotional thinking about all the troubles and joys I have experienced and those I’m yet to experience because I know there are turbulent times ahead, and some joyous moments too.

There is, sadly, very little knowledge about autism, and a lot of generalisations surrounding it where people know about it. Most people think all children with autism rock themselves all the time, can’t make eye contact, live in their own world and line their toys. Victor does none of the above but is autistic without a shadow of a doubt.

At age 2, he had a very unusual vocabulary of about five words. He could say D, what we called his cousin Darren, Mama, svosve (ant), water and light. He had never called me but would point at my pictures and say Mama. Because he was my first child, I had no basis for comparison and might have reacted a bit late. A speech therapist said she suspected autism, An Ear, Nose and Throat specialist said he was definitely not autistic, a dentist said he had a beefy tongue and things would eventually even themselves out as he grew and he would talk. I chose to believe the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist and the dentist.  A nurse in the neighbourhood said he probably had a tongue-tie, which she checked for but did not find. Other people told me to relax because boys spoke late, but I could not relax. I just felt there was more to the problem than just the speech. His vocabulary was coming slowly as he grew, but most of what he said revolved around cars.

By age 4 he could pick out almost all the car brands, even though he could not read. I remember telling someone that I felt my son was like a CPU that had been hit by a virus. He had a lot of words in his head but it was mostly difficult to make sense of it all. I know it was also difficult for him to make sense of the world and its inhabitants.

Parenting a child with autism will change your life in ways you never imagined.I used to be a right-here-right-now kind of person when it came to getting results, but now my endurance level is inimitable because dealing with some of his behavioural issues and waiting for him to grasp some concepts require that. Sometimes he really pushes my buttons and I just sit there with my game face on, pretending to read or listen to the music when I’m actually grinding my teeth and praying for restraint. I now know when it’s just an autism issue that should be delicately handled or when he’s just being a pest, as most children are sometimes,and needs a more drastic reaction. My reactions to his behavioural issues usually shock other people. Where people think I should just let it slide, I make a big deal of it. Where people think I should hit the roof, I’m very calm and guide Victor through what he should be doing. This is because I can read him like a book and now know how to handle situations, at least most of the times. In my relationships with other people, I have also learned to pick my battles. Victor gives me good practice. I know when to retreat and when to roll in the big guns.Taking care of Victor has taught me never to take anything for granted. What we think is no big deal like a child singing, talking, walking, going to the bathroom, hearing is a big deal.

I have almost become a recluse because visiting people is a very trying experience. Victor’s social skills are improving, but they still need a lot of work. Entertaining at homecan also be a traumatic experience because occasionally, he will immediately hijack the show, interviewing the guests about whatever he thinks is relevant.  No amount of telling him off will help. If anything, it makes him even more fiercely determined to have his way. We’ve had balding men being asked what happened to their hair and whether they used hair clippers to remove it. The ladies are always being asked about their nail polish, where they did their hair and where they left their children. When I was pregnant with his baby sister, I used to let him feel the baby kick. Now every full-figured woman who comes will have her tummy felt and get questioned about the baby in the stomach. Guests usually entertain his questions for a while, but at some point they will have to talk about more serious stuff with the adults. If people decide to ignore him, he will shout to regain the lost attention and so that his voice is not drowned by the people around. Inadvertently we all gradually start to shout to counter his shouting so that we can hear each other, and it all becomes very nerve-wracking for me.

The situation usually escalates because of some people in my circle and the way they act around him. I have ‘friends’ and relatives who treat him like a spectacle, not a child like their own. He’s very perceptive, so he senses it and begins to act up, thereby making my life more difficult. I’m not blind. I also see it and have to bite my tongue to avoid telling the offending guest to leave, never look back and never come to my house again. Then there are the presumptuous types that feel they know everything about his condition, from the things that autistic people like doing and how they should be treated. Some even recommended that I should buy pianos and paints because people with autism like music and art. If these people gave me a chance to put a word in, I’d tell them they didn’t quite know what they were talking about.  In the same way that no two zebras share the same stripe pattern, when you see one autistic person, you’ve only seen one not all. Painting them all with one brush because they have the same condition is nothing short of being blinkered.

The worst kind of people in my circle are the tactless ones that look out for his weaknesses so that they can start singing to my face about how awesome their kids are at the things my son can’t do. People should rejoice in their children’s achievements. I also rejoice with my sisters, friends and relatives when their kids do well, I don’t begrudge them at all. I, however, feel it’s extremely uncouth for one to blatantly draw comparisons between their children and my son, knowing what I have to deal with. That’s just like sitting with a friend who’s an amputee and all you can talk nineteen to the dozen about are the marathons you run, and then you go, “Oops! Here I am going on and on about marathons when you poor thing don’t have legs”.  I just watch them ramble on, thinking, “God, you evil bitch, you! It would give me the greatest pleasure to kick your teeth in.” I have always believed some people were born with a sensitivity chip missing somewhere.  I have also met a number of people who say, “God gives special children to special parents. Be glad that you at least have a child because many people out there can’t have children.” My late neighbour had a wall hanging with the words, “Lord, help me to keep my mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about”. I’m going to look for one like that and stick it on my forehead with hopes that the motor mouths in my circle will get the message.  I just wish people knew when to keep quiet. No one has the license to tell anyone how to feel about anything.

My son was the first person with autism that I ever met, but now I know hundreds, if not thousands from groups I follow on social media and from the school he attended. I have even met people that I feel were undiagnosed but would be if they bothered to see the doctor. Because I didn’t know anyone with it, I had no idea where to go for support. No-one in my circle knew how to help me either. It was the most heartbreaking time of my life. I contacted South African Depression and Anxiety Group after realizing the wheels of my mind were slowly but surely coming off because of the grief the diagnosis brought and was referred to Autism South Africa. That organization saved me from myself. I got a lot of literature on the condition and began to meet more parents walking the same path as myself. It was small comfort. At the end of the day I still had to go back home to deal with my own problems. The fact that there are other people with the same challenges we face doesn’t necessarily solve ours. It’s like feeling hungry, and then someone tells you that millions of other people are also starving. Does that take away the hunger? I also got invaluable support from The Ernie Els Centre for Autism and therapists at the Johannesburg Hospital School.

Over the years, I have learnt to live with the autism, manage his condition better, and my emotions are no longer all over the place, but there will never be a time when I will feel that it’s OK, that I would never turn the ship around if I could.  Maybe that day will come, but it’s certainly not now.

It’s been an arduous ride so far, with not much hope of the difficulties abating. Still I’m grateful for the smallest improvement I see. I’ve come from a time when I could not sleep. A time when I cried and prayed that I would hear just one meaningful sentence from him. Now sometimes I fall short of crying that he can just be quiet for just one minute. And sometimes I can’t sleep because he will be talking even at 1am when he can’t fall asleep. Then I think back to the time that I wept that he could talk, and his endless talking stops being a major concern because I know I asked for it.

It is a roller coaster ride. One day I’m full of beans and all raved up, telling myself I’ve got this, and I can trample snakes and scorpions. Another, he does something or fails to do something in a way that breaks my spirit and I’mleft flaccid, telling myself I should let go and let God, and what will be will be. 

I’m really glad I’m past the victim phase when I thought I would never smile again in my miserable life and all I could think was, “Why me?” Now I take things in my stride. I still think, “Why me?” but I don’t cry all the time about it. Sometimes I stagger and am on the brink of falling flat on my face again, but I won’t let that happen. There are a number of occasions when Victor makes us laugh to tears, like when his sister fell and he said, “The ground bumped baby on the head”. The first time he saw someone smoke, it was my husband’s friend. He said, “Mummy, look! Uncle is playing with fire”. To most it’s just a silly conversation, but we fall short of throwing a party when he speaks like that.

On the 7^th of January, my father’s cousin passed away at the age of 57. Although he wasn’t autistic, he lived with a disability that made him very dependent. I wept quietly in my room, thankful that he had preceded his mother in checking out of this world. That’s one of my worst fears, one shared by many parents of autistic children. Dying ahead of my son would be a calamity. It’s hard enough taking care of him as his parents. Nine years down the line we still haven’t completely figured him out, maybe we never will. A person with neurotypical children and no experience whatsoever on autism would really struggle and most likely grow impatient with him, and consequently neglect him.

I’m grateful for some remarkable people God put in my life when I needed a shoulder to cry on, or just someone who listened while I ranted and raved about how my life really sucked. They were, some still are, the wind beneath my wings. My kind friends always ask about autism, what they should know, how they should handle my son, his preferences when he visits their houses, and what challenges they should expect from him and how to deal with them. It makes me feel that I’m not in this alone.

I hate autism with a passion and I abhorthat my son has it.It stretches you; it tests all the relationships you have with everyone, especially your spouse and immediate family. A number of the women with autistic children in my circle are single mothers because their partners failed to cope with the challenges of raising an autistic child and scurried for the hills.

The best advice I got was from a friend who said regardless of what the doctors or other people said or did, I should never give up fighting to make my son’s condition better. He said if you quit, then who’s going to stand by him? I will not quit, and hard as it is will try to count my garden by the flowers, not by the leaves that fall. If he ever fails to do something, it will be because of his limitations, not because his mom gave up on him.

*Excerpt from a book I’m writing on parenting a child with autism.

Related:
Autism: A Mother's Tale