Lasting Effects

Four years ago, my son suffered a trauma. Overnight he went from being a cuddle bug to a distant and rage full child. He trusted no one, not even I to brush his own teeth. Just approaching him had to be done with thought and care. We have fought so hard to get him to a place where he feels safe and protected. Yet, he still flinches if you approach too quickly, hold him in a way that triggers him, don’t hear him out or raise your voice too loudly.

I have learned that children who suffer trauma at very young age, their parents are told that they will somehow forget it and be fine. I was told this by doctors, therapists and people whose thinking was "Well, it could have been worse." I know this is not true. The memories of what happened to my son, though they are a bit fuzzier now in his head he still remembers, he will still say or ask something from time to time. He may not recall every action taken his body does. It continues to tell him to be scared and distrust even when WE think he may not have a reason. It will tell him to fight because he was triggered somehow. He can't tell you why, he just knows that it happened. He hates that he responds this way. He can't explain his "irrational" response because it's stems from trauma. The trauma he received was an irrational act carried out on him. There is no rationalizing it. He didn't ask to be beaten or to live with the effects from it for the rest of his days but here we are, 4 years later. He still flinches, cries and fights when things don't go as planned, he needs things just so and is constantly seeking hugs and reassurance. Spirals out of control and only returns once he releases the anger in him. It's painful to see him get this way. To hear him screaming, fighting and crying because he just needs to feel a sense of control, to have his voice heard. It brakes me to hear the same words come out that he shouted at the man that hurt him, only directed towards me or my husband for just being parents who have to correct and guide him.

We are human and we know we bring our own baggage to the table too. So we have worked hard. I even harder to ensure his success in overcoming so much that was placed on him. I do the hard work, I take the classes, I see the therapist, I read the books, go to the trainings, fight the battles that need to be fought and argue against anyone who does not try to help him. He needs to be supported, not judged or dismissed as a lost cause.

In the meantime…we tell him he his brave, that he shows courage every day by taking on new challenges and for learning to trust even a little bit each day. We remain always watchful. 

We are blessed for sure!

With love and dedication anything is possible!

Raising an Empowered Daughter Benefits Us All

NOTE THIS WAS WRITTEN AWHILE AGO BUT NEVER POSTED CORRECTLY

With the state of the world being what it is, I wanted to focus on how I am attempting to raise my kids, specifically my daughter. She is a powerhouse and I really want to keep that part of her personality strong. We taught her a mantra at a very early age, “I can do anything and I can do it better.” We never want her to think that because she is a female that she is limited. 

This year for 100 years of school the kids all were dressing up as old people. We went with a different angle. She chose to wear a “Suffragette” costume. I taught her all about woman’s plight to have the right to vote, to be treated equal and the continued fight for equal pay and equal treatment. 

She loved the costume but what she loved more was that she was making a statement. Something she is all to familiar with. The year before this, she went as “Rosie the Riveter” showing that women could do “men’s” work and do it better. We are all for raising and empowered daughter but the added benefit is that in teaching her, our sons are learning the importance of a fair equality. Some could say that this will have a negative impact on my boys, making them “less of a man” or that I am raising “Lady Men” Or that I am raising my daughter to be a “Man hater” but I absolutely disagree.

Raising boys to respect women and acknowledging their struggles doesn’t mean that I am taking away from them as weakening them. The opposite really. I am empowering them to stand for injustices that affect both sexes. I am asking to stand for anyone that is oppressed or mistreated in anyway. They aren’t being raised with the idea that they being men gives them an edge that is better just for being male. They can recognize it and address it. 

Teaching your child to be humanitarians is never a bad thing. Teaching them to be advocates for others, and themselves selves is an empowering thing. One that I certainly would like to see more children aware of these days. The world can only get better if we teach our children to be who they are meant to be, to encourage their strengths while also teaching them that they can stand up for any injustices they see either against them or those around them. 

I encourage you to teach your kids male and female, about the importance of standing up for themselves and others. I am from New York, and after 9/11 there were poster’s everywhere that said “See something, Say Something.”  To protect the public from any dangers that may lurk in the city. Granted, it came from tragedy but doesn’t most change come from something severe or life changing. I want my kids to follow that way of thinking. We are advocates not just for ourselves but for others and the world we reside in as well.

Teach your daughters to be strong. To know their history as women and teach your sons to stand strong in support of that because after all, they too will have to deal with women in this world. Empathy and strength go a long way for we humans to build a better place in this world. Let’s empower our girls but let’s not forget the gift we give our sons in doing so. It benefits us all.

Not Out of the Woods Yet

So where I last left off wasn’t easy and it hasn’t been easy getting back to “Normal” either. The last few years have been difficult for our family. From my fathers initial diagnosis, to details of abuse towards my son, however for legal reasons, I have been unable to tell you it all.

Having said that, I do want you to know that we have been struggling to get back to a place that seems familiar to us. In the midst of the pandemic, I lost my father to cancer. That was devastating and I personally am just trying to dig myself out of the grief I have been feeling. I became disconnected from friends and family because everything, every memory, every thought of him not being here brakes me. I am trying to find my way out of the pain from his loss, so forgive me for not keeping up with my posts. 

Prior to my fathers death, I had been dealing with a case of abuse against my son, Ethan. I will share more details about what occurred once that situation has been resolved.

What I can tell you is that after the assault, it took forever to get close to justice for my son. And it took a year to find reasonable help after being rejected by one counseling place because his trauma response was to aggressive and his Autism made it hard for the therapist to help him. The pandemic hit, and there was no help to be found. So desperate to help him, we started Behavior therapy virtually with a BCBA to try and get him back to a place where he felt safe with us and could get his behavior under control. He would go into fits of rage any time we tried to tell him to do something, approached him in a way he felt threatened when all I might have been doing was going to help brush his teeth, hug or kiss him. He had nightmares and needed me by his side endlessly. I spent a school year at his school volunteering just so he could feel safe. There was no way I could work while my son needed me. He was scared and angry all of the time. 

He feels safe with us now but he still flinches when we approach him to quickly or we raise our voices to loud. His feeling safer is thanks to his BCBA who focused more on Cognitive Behavior with him rather then your typical old ABA which used demands, blocking and restriction which only escalated his feeling or response from him trauma. Before we started with the BCBA, Ethan had been in our bed for nearly a year. With a plan in place, we slowly and gradually got him back to his room. He had gone back to bed wetting with nightmares and that is something we still struggle with. He screams at night for his father because he is too scared to leave his room to go to the bathroom some nights. Wetting the floor at the threshold of his door. My fearless child became scared of everything. Still today, I see him scared of so many things it makes me sad for him. He feels unlucky. This isn’t the first time people that were supposed to care for him hurt him. He thinks pain or death is just around the corner. The pandemic and dads death didn’t help but it did give me time to focus on his wellbeing.

So the therapy has helped him get to a place where he can now sit and have conversations with us. We finally felt like he was at a place where we could get him the trauma therapy he needed after 2 years. But we are not out of the woods yet. Now we are having difficulty finding a therapist that could help him with the focus being what happened to him. There are almost no therapist in the county or state, that are willing to deal with this sort of incident and have the knowledge on how to deal with an Autistic child his age. It frustrates me that we have worked so hard but still we find it hard to get him the exact help he needs. 

It’s horrible when you know what your child needs and you aren’t able to provide it for them. Mental health is equally as important to children, as seeing a dentist or pediatrician but isn’t as readily available where we live. It’s frustrating and disappointing. My every focus is on how we can help him as a family. 

We will not stop helping him even if I have to travel to another state to get him the help he needs. I promised my father that I would always fight for Ethan and do what’s right. This is me doing that.

We are blessed for sure!

With love and dedication anything is possible!

Finding Something to be Thankful For

Thanksgiving is meant to be a day that friends and family gather to celebrate the kick off to the holidays. Where you stuff your face with foods you don’t typically have all year and sit on the couch joking and telling stories or pass out watching a game.  I just couldn’t get into it this year. 

Instead of us all getting together, we spent it apart. Each doing our own individual thing to cope. Dad probably wouldn’t have wanted it to be that way, but dad didn’t realize how hard it would be for us, the living who remain without him. I did my best for the kids, sat watched the Thanksgiving Parade and cooked a meal for them all to make it seems festive but I did not feel festive. We still mourn. 

My kids know it isn’t the same. That this our first holiday without him would be hard.  I didn’t want to gather like as if nothing happened. I didn’t want to pretend my smile or laugh when I didn’t feel it. Losing our father was not easy. We watched him go from strong to nearly dying and suddenly doing well again. We had hope that we could buy another year.  Then COVID hit. Then he got worse again. I watched the strongest man I knew whither away, weakened by his cancer. After a two year battle, he was ready to go but we, I was not ready to let go. Can’t say I am now either. 

Yet, I am grateful to the Doctors and nurses that took care of him giving us those extra two years. I am appreciative to the Pastor that helped him find peace with himself and reconnect with his faith. That I know he left this world to the next knowing that I loved him. I looked at the chair where he would have sat, and I am put at ease knowing that he is no longer suffering though his lack of presence pains me. I am thankful that I was able to see him take his last breath and that he didn’t do so alone or in a hospital, like so many have this past year. He was surrounded by family. I am mindful that his life had value to us all and with out him we grieve because he mattered so much. 

Somehow, each day my mother finds the strength to get up each morning and start another day without him. That gives me strength. My dad built us strong and I do not see my grief as weakness though it weakens me. It is what one does when someone they love passes on. I never  use to cry, but now I cry all the time. I am a waterfall of sadness. 

So I am sorry to those I didn’t call or text today.  I’m just trying to keep one foot in front of the other, letting autopilot takeover and pray that I keep doing so. I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving, surrounded by people that matter. That they opened their hearts to you so you may do the same. 

My last conversation with my dad was ended with “Todo tiene su fin (everything has an end).” With that in mind, be grateful for the life you have and the people in it. Tell them often that you love them and that you are thankful for them because everything has it’s end and you will never know when that last I love you will be. 

We are blessed for sure!

With love and dedication anything is possible!

My Fathers Service

In the next coming days I will share how my family has been  coping with the loss of my father. 

For those who were interested in seeing how the service went for my father, see the link below. Thank you to the family at Providence Lutheran Church and Pastor Pattie Sue for a lovely service and for taking such good care of us all throughout the day.

VIDEO of SERVICE

Pedro Jimenez - Memorial Service 

I will also add the Eulogy below for those who just want to read that portion. 

Eulogy

My family and I would like to thank all of you who came today to remember my father, Pedro Jimenez. I think he would have liked to know that we all came together because he believed that family and friends should always be there for one another. 

I didn’t know exactly what I would or could tell you about my dad that you didn’t already know. If you gave him 5 minutes, he would’ve happily spoken to you about your life and his. 

My father came to the United States with no more then $30 in his pocket, most of it in useless pesos. He had big dreams to go along with his big personality. He lived life the way he wanted and no one could tell him otherwise. He was a hard worker, started working on only his second day in the United states. He went from washing dishes to eventually owning his own business. Even after retirement he still was working, always offering help wherever and whenever he could.

After some time in the US, he soon realized he had to sacrifice those dreams for the sake of his family back home in the Dominican Republic and eventually for the one he would create here. He never complained. Never sought accolades. He just worked harder. Every dream he had, he poured into others. If not for Pedro Jimenez, who would we be today? 

Dad never believed in taking handouts but was always willing to give one. He believed in helping family and that family should always be there to support one another. Even when he was hurt by some of those he helped, he had the ability to look past that pain or disappointment. His answer “uno no deja de ser familia,” you don’t stop being family. 

Dads thoughts on family extended out to others. He’d help the unemployable, people with addiction by giving them jobs and providing them meals. He believed in second chances. 

For me, he was everything, dad, hero and friend. As a child, I worshipped him, as a teen I didn’t want much to do with him, as a young adult, I learned to see him for who he was, a man with flaws like any other human. My biggest blessing, and I think my siblings would agree, that we had the opportunity to know our father best as adults. If you were fortunate enough to speak with him, he would tell you grand stories or ask you questions to understand you and your life better. A philosopher at heart, he never said no to a debate, whether it was about politics, religion, world facts in history or space exploration. He almost always had a joke to share or wisdom to spare. Yet, what stands out most to me was how much more loving he became as a grandfather. I got to see him do things with his grandkids, that I couldn’t imagine for myself as a child.

Dad was able to say I love you with ease and never left anyone feeling unloved. I was lucky, I could have a knock out fight about politics with my dad one minute, see him smile at me, laugh about it and still walk away knowing that I was loved. We all were.  

He loved all his grandkids like crazy. Always, spoke of his children with pride to others. And I was able to witness the depth of his love for my mother and his heartbreak to have to leave her.

I recall hearing someone speak about the importance to look for the grace, the beauty and the miracle in life and in death. I believe my father did that the best way he could. He read books from Billy Graham to the Dali Lama seeking wisdom and spirituality. My father would have wanted us all to live authentically, to be grateful, to believe in a greater power and to be happy with who you are. 

Who you were was important to him. Pa always said “Take care of your name, it is the only thing that can’t be taken from you.”

I leave you with this quote from my dad shortly before he died, he said “Lisa, my life has been full of ups and downs but I have been lucky enough to meet some great people along my journey. I am better for that. Look for the people that make you better.” This was his last lesson to teach before his voice went silent. He made me better. He made us all better and he will be truly missed.

I urge you all to look for the good in people, acknowledge the ones already in your life by letting them know that you love them.  Give from your heart because Kindness always finds its way back to you. Remember that Pa tried to find good in all by getting to know them. It’s why he was loved by so many. It is why you are here today. Thank you for the love and support you have shown my father and my family. 

Pa, I love you and I will see you again one day.