I was thrilled about his life the moment Sarah told me she was “expecting.”  Three weeks prior to her confession, I had learned of my own pregnancy.  I was thrilled to share the journey with my close friend.  This thrill was magnified when we both discovered we were having boys.  It was obvious they were destined to be best buddies.  Visions of play dates, shared birthday parties and visits to the ice-cream parlor after tee-ball practices began taking shape in my mind.  The scheme was so perfect, and life never looked better.

Isaac arrived a month after my own son’s birth.  I rushed to the hospital when the call came.  There were introductions to be made, and I saw no point in wasting time.  My first meeting with Isaac, technically, took place in that sterile hospital room; however, the first time our souls found one another was a couple weeks later.

It was a festive event at a mutual friend’s house.  My baby was sleeping peacefully in his carrier in spite of the commotion going on around him.  Isaac, on the other hand, would not be consoled.  I offered to take Isaac for a while so that Sarah could have a chance to calm her nerves and interact with others.  She gratefully handed him over.

It didn’t take much.  A few steps away from the activity, I cradled Isaac in my arms and began singing softly to him.  He stopped squirming and crying.  Though he was not making eye contact with me, it was obvious that he was very alert and listening intently.  I knew I was in the presence of greatness, and I suspected he felt the same.

“Look at the way he settles right down with her,” I overheard Sarah remark to her husband.  Looking in their direction, I could see they both were stunned by what they saw.  When I finally handed him back I explained, “He just needed to take a break from the party.”  “No,” Sarah disagreed, “He is always like this even at home with no disturbances.  It was just you.”

Is it normal?

Over the next month Sarah and I met weekly at her house so that our daughters could play together while we attended to the boys.  We spent most of that time planning future sleepovers and other ways to intertwine the lives of our sons, but Sarah increasingly began asking me strange questions.  “How long do you think it will be before Isaac can focus on me?”  “Is it normal for him to push me away when I try to nurse him?”  “Have you ever heard of babies sleeping with their eyes open?”  “When babies have bad dreams, do they let out a piercing shriek in their sleep?  You know . . . the kind that sends chills up your spine?”  Each time I was a little unnerved by her inquiries, for these things didn’t seem normal to me.  I waited with much anxiety alongside Sarah as she began to seek answers from her pediatrician and specialists.

And then the diagnoses

Test results slowly trickled in, but the information brought little clarity.  There were a wide variety of evident problems, but no one clearly understood how it all came together.  Isaac was blind in one eye and had minimal vision in the other.  He had severe digestive problems that caused him to throw up everything, making him a “failure to thrive” case.  Neurological damage was evident as well with a high-pitched whine as his primary form of communication.  Eventually he was given an autism diagnosis to accompany his other syndromes.

Sarah began to withdraw.  Consequently, my contact with Isaac also decreased.  It’s true that doctor’s appointments and therapies occupied their lives, but I felt there was more to this.  When I did actually attain a visit with Isaac and Sarah, my questions were met with vague answers.  My requests to help were pushed aside.  Sarah was socially uneasy, and I felt the distance.

The support she needed

Although I was not Isaac’s auntie by blood, I was his auntie by choice.  Since his days in the womb, this child had secured a position in my family.  He was to be my son’s best friend.  I had fully expected him to spend half of his youth hanging out at my house, eating out of my refrigerator and considering me his second mom.  My heartache was great as I realized these things might never be, but feeling like an “outsider” intensified the pain.

I was grieving too

At first I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, but I decided to honestly tell Sarah how I felt.  As I carefully broached the subject, she confessed to consciously withdrawing.  One of her reasons was she didn’t want to pawn her responsibility off on anyone or burden others with her grief.  I remember being overtaken by emotion as I tried to express the point she was so clearly missing.  “Sarah, you are not the only one grieving.  You may be the primary one, but you are not the only one.  I love Isaac too, and I’m grieving the loss of dreams that I had for him as well.  You’re not protecting anyone by withdrawing, and this is not something for you to shoulder alone.  God didn’t give Isaac just to you.  He gave Isaac to all of us, and we want to be a part of the support you’ll need to make Isaac’s life as good as it can be.”

My words took Sarah by surprise.  Honestly, they took me by surprise as well.  I hadn’t intended to lay it out quite like that, but in doing so Sarah and I both had some revelations.  She had never considered that others would want to play a role in the tragedy that had overtaken her family.  As for me, I realized that being a special-needs auntie had changed the dynamics of our relationship.

I would now need to take a pro-active approach to maintaining these relationships.  Sarah and Isaac had a tremendous amount on their plate in just working to improve his condition.  They did not need to be burdened unnecessarily with obligations of relational etiquette.  If a phone call were desired, I would be the one to make it.  If a visit were warranted, I would be the one to schedule it.  If help were needed, I would be the one to offer it . . . possibly even insist upon it.

Initiative, tempered by gentleness, was not a virtue that I expressed easily.  But as Sarah and I finished our heart-to-heart, she agreed to give me some room to grow in this respect.  I walked away from that conversation still nervous about Isaac’s uncertain future but much more confident about my role in it as his Savvy Auntie.