The Swim Meet

Yesterday, Hudson participated in his first ever 3rd-4th grade swim meet. Students from each grade level signed up to compete in various swimming events.

Hudson is diagnosed with Level 2 Autism Spectrum Disorder, and he has many triggers. He is particularly triggered by waiting in lines or for his turn at something, and by competition. His need to win and be the best is so severe that he has 1:1 adaptive PE in his IEP. This means that most days in PE he works alone with the PE instructor. His anxiety over not winning a challenge or a game can be so crippling that it sends him into a full-blown meltdown.

He had played two seasons in a non-competitive youth soccer league when he was younger. And while he was great at cheering teammates on, he would collapse in a screaming pile on the grass when he missed a shot or someone ran faster than him.

So when we heard that he had signed up to compete with his class, we prepared ourselves for the worst.

The pool house was hot and loud, filled with the echoing sounds of kids and parents alike, with no open seats on either side. There were twelve different events that would take more than 90 minutes to complete, and the kids had been in the pool house for several minutes before the event began. Hudson’s event was next to last.

When Kayla and I arrived, we could tell that Hudson was already struggling. He was curled up in a ball at the end of bench, his head buried between his knees. His face was flushed red. His aide explained to Kayla that he was upset with having to wait for his turn to swim. Some classmates sat next to him, trying to comfort him as best as they could.

Eventually, Hudson’s OT and Kayla took him to a dry erase board in the back corner where he used markers to draw his favorite sharks. His teacher had brought over his headphones, which helped lessen the loud sounds. This distraction worked for awhile, but Hudson soon found himself in a pile on the floor, once again triggered and upset. And again, his classmates came to sit with him, which melted my heart. After several more minutes of this, Hudson’s OT took him out of the pool house and into the hallway.

When I saw this, my heart sank and I began wondering if his day would end without his swimming. I was starting to prepare myself for the ride home, and for how triggered he would be the rest of the day.

But with two events to go until his, Hudson returned to the bench and seemed ready to go.

Hudson took his position in line, waiting patiently for his leg of the relay race. He was the anchor. He knelt down at the pool’s edge to help his teammates climb out of the water. When it was his turn to go, he again waited patiently as he was helped into his life jacket.

And then, splash. Hudson was in the water and on his way. What happened next brought tears to my eyes.

As he swam in the most Hudson-esque way possible, doing what he called “shark and Spinosaurus spins”, every student on the bench began chanting.

“HUDSON! HUDSON! HUDSON!!”

The chants continued his entire swim down the lane. It was the kind of feel-good moment that you see on ESPN. Without knowing it, he had already ‘won’ just by conquering his triggers and getting in the water. But as he touched the edge, I looked at the other lanes and saw that the other kids were still swimming behind him.

Hudson’s team had won.

Navigating Loss

You've probably noticed that we haven't posted content in quite some time. It has taken me a long time to put together my thoughts for this letter, which is one of the longest I've ever written. The last post we wrote was a reflection on 'Special Person's Day' at Hudson's school last November, where his Grandma Sandy (Kayla's Mom) and I were part of many special individuals who were celebrated. One week later, our world was flipped upside down. And it wouldn't be the first time that everything would change.

One day after returning to work from a long Thanksgiving holiday, I was laid off as part of a reduction in business that impacted several others in the company.

I was given a meager severance package that would only sustain us through the end of the month. We were still recovering financially from another year of expensive projects on the house, so our parachute was small. Kayla and I immediately began to scale back on holiday shopping, focusing just on the boys, while also canceling any thoughts about a vacation in 2025. I had been with the company for nearly 7 years, and my income was roughly 60% of what we brought in each year.

Kayla and I agreed that we needed to hold off on telling the boys about my job loss until after the holidays. Hudson’s birthday has always been a triggering event that he obsesses over each year, and we didn’t want anything to tarnish his special day. We put on a brave front for the boys, cringing every time one of them pointed out something new that they wanted, or places that they wanted to go during winter break. I had worked remote since COVID, so the boys were used to my always being home. My working remote had been a blessing for us, as it allowed me to never miss a school meeting or function. I would get the boys off the bus every afternoon and had started taking Hudson to school in the morning. We were anxious about my finding another project management position in a field that suddenly had a tremendous amount of competition, particularly for remote work. Kayla was able to find comfort in talking to her Mom, as she reassured her over and over that everything would be ok.

We told the boys about my lay off between Christmas and New Year's. I'll never forget how Hudson erupted into tears, his anxiety overtaking him...

"YOU'LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER JOB AND WE'RE GOING TO BE POOR FOREVER!!"

Days later, we were dealt another terrible blow - one that was far worse than my loss of income. Kayla's Mom had suddenly passed away.

Grandma Sandy had always been a constant in Hudson and Finn's lives. She was Hudson's 'person' in the family outside of the house, and he and Finn always loved seeing her. She made every sporting event and school performance that she could. Each time she visited them, she would always bring a pack of cookies, toys, or clothes that she thought they would like, no matter how much we pushed back. Whenever we needed an ultra rare date night or a break from the kids, Grandma Sandy was almost always the first person that we called. The boys would be full of energy when she watched them, no doubt running her completely ragged in the process. But if she was exhausted from watching them, she'd never let it show.

When I lost my job, we were optimistic that we could lean on Sandy for help with the boys as I scheduled interviews. With each remote work position rejection that I received, the thought of my having to transition to fully in-office or hybrid work became more of a concerning reality. Kayla and I would spend our nights trying to plan out how often we might need her Mom to be here after school, or to come over long enough for us to attend meetings for Hudson.

Losing Sandy meant that we lost much more than a source of respite. The loss created a large void in our family that will never fully heal. Kayla lost her Mom, and Hudson and Finn lost the Grandma that was always there for them. The Grandma who was one of the first to hold them after they were born, and would cheer them on in soccer or tee ball games, and would cry while watching performances that they were in. The Grandma that they would jump and cheer for joy when Kayla asked if they wanted to go her house.

In the hours and days after her passing, Hudson and Finn tried their best to process what it all meant. They comforted our tears and continue to give Kayla hugs whenever she thinks about her Mom to this day.

Hudson sat between Kayla and I at the funeral, more stoic and quiet than he had ever been. He doesn't like being anywhere but home, and usually fights and screams any time that we have to go somewhere that isn't a special place for him. Thankfully, there was very little resistance when it came to going to the funeral, and we planned for him to only be there for a short time. As eulogies were read and songs were song, we could see tears off and on rolling down his cheeks. I read the poem that he had given to Sandy on Special Person's Day, and I struggled through the words. In the weeks after the funeral, Hudson would talk about his Grandma Sandy or write about her in projects at school.

When you are living life on the spectrum, it takes a village to survive. But that village is often very small. Grandma Sandy was such a huge part of our village, and we don't know how we'll navigate life without her. There will never be another Special Person like Sandy, and we miss her dearly.

I started a new job early last month with an amazing company that supports remote work and has a family-first mentality. Days before her funeral, Kayla and I decided to gamble on my future and invested in a prestigious but also expensive Project Management certification program through Cornell University. I posted on Facebook that I had started this new journey with the hopes that it would land me a dream job upon completion - a job where I could still have the same availability to Hudson, Finn, and Kayla, without completely destroying Hudson's routines.

Grandma Sandy showed us that she could still perform miracles for our family after her passing. A friend of theirs saw my post while looking for updates on her passing online. This friend, Kera, works for Cornell and out of the goodness of her heart extended me a Friend's and Family discount that refunded nearly all of my course enrollment tuition back to me at a time when we desperately needed to save money.

Sandy told Kayla in December that everything would be OK, and she made sure that she held true to her word.

Special Persons Day

Let me tell you… Hudson has a skill for making you tear up without knowing he’s doing it.

Today was Special Person’s Day at school. It’s meant to be a celebration of special people in a student’s life. I was fortunate enough to make the Father’s Day Coffee event in past years and was excited for today. I was joined by Hudson’s Grandma Sandy.

The event took place in the high school cafeteria, and we were directed to pick a table when we walked in. The room was PACKED, with many guests standing along the wall. The back of the room contained tables of sweet treats and coffee that had been donated by the school PFO and a local coffee company.

Hudson came in to the cafeteria with his class, his eyes scanning the crowd trying to find us. His face lit up when he saw where we were sitting, and he immediately came running over. The look on his face when he finds me during an event is always one of my favorites.

He presented Grandma Sandy and I with two laminated poems. Looking at the length and penmanship, I could tell that this took him awhile to do. Writing is one of his challenges, and I was impressed at how hard he had worked on this.

We both teared up when we read the words he had written. And out of nowhere, Hudson grabbed both of our hands and gave us smiles as if to say “I don’t know why you’re crying, but it’s OK.”

Not long after, we joined the line of others to get our special treats. I could tell he was excited to show us how special we were to him. He offered to pick out our treats for us, and shockingly went behind the table to serve us alongside the volunteers who were running the event! No other student was serving their guests; Hudson chose to do this all on his own.

I am so grateful for these types of events at the school. We likely will never see him play in a school sporting event or participate in a competition. If this is all we get, it’s more than enough to melt my heart.