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Loving guidance and repeated steps provide freedom
for co-piloted interdependence, but one must
remember each step in a new situation or
combination will still take practice and support until
mastery occurs.
Sir Makone of Knarlwoods joined our home this past week, all fifty empty-brained pounds packed into still- to-grow folded skin. He was already the size of Bonnie our two-year-old standard poodle. Beki, died five days earlier and Bonnie had not eaten, refused to ride in the car and moped around the house. Already her bones protruded from her skin and the bounce and light was fading. I understood her feelings, those feelings were the very reason she had originally joined our home. Bonnie arrived two years ago as Liz, eighteen and full of the wonder of the world ventured into adulthood carrying the burden of FASDs and the belief that “when you’re eighteen you can do anything ‘you’ want.” Watching her transverse chasms and be drawn into trauma, I needed something to hang onto as both my daughter and the old dog she left behind skittered close to death. Bonnie brought into my home of sadness and worry the joy and laughter and I her with the same neuro skills Liz taught me to help her brain grow. Bonnie became a sanctuary for me when Liz fell into difficult life experiences, her fur soaked oodles of tears as she had licked the salty water off my cheeks and cheered me on with dog ideas to make me feel better. She was a good teacher. To see Bonnie, now almost a big dog pining for her adopted mother broke my heart. We had all survived the treacherous journey and learned much – Bonnie plays the piano with her nose and Liz rides the metro from one side of the city to another without getting lost or picking up a “friend” who needs a place to stay. Timid Bonnie meets and greets strangers in polite doggie style and Liz now keeps her home a private refuge. The five year brain training program we set up for Liz didn’t stop her from exploring the world filled with coldness and stress and miscommunication and human predators. Her need for self-experience to find herself and understand the limits her brain injury placed on her was a journey she had to make herself without the controls and structure and safety we had provided. Mr. “Mak” is peacefully sleeping by my feet as I type in my up”stairs” office. At nine-months- old he had no idea how to go up any steps. He was afraid of the steps to the kennel and the steps to the car and the steps to the studio and the steps to the basement. Some were carpeted and some were yellow wood and some were brown wood and some were concrete and some were painted white. They were all steps . . . . . . .simple steps. Mak came to teach Karl and I a very important lesson for Liz who has finally settled into her ‘own’ home of safety and sanctuary. Mak came to teach us that even though he looks full grown he is a baby and needs a lot of love and guidance to grow. Mak came to teach Karl and I that each step is a new learning experience and each step is different. He came to remind us that his heart wants to do each step but sometimes his mind doesn’t know how. He came at this moment to show us that some steps he could go up and some steps he could go down, but some steps he isn’t ready to touch at all. Maybe someday when he is a big dog. With Mak we expect accidents and piddles as he plods curiously and innocently into each life experience. Liz has learned much in her two-year life college of hard knocks. Karl and I have learned as Liz has grown. Mak backs up and spreads his gangly feet in all directions to protect himself from each new step – Liz in her own way does the same - she loves and hates learning. Mak came to remind us that just as we had taught Liz in our home, we needed to move on to teaching her out-of-our home with the same love, compassion and expectations – step by tiny step finally gradually handing her our controls and respecting that they can become her controls. Today we implement a seven-step process in exploring or teaching her a new skill. 1. REVIEW - We review the options of how to teach so we have a backup plan. We make the initial calls, visit the site and discover the details. 2. WATCH - We tell Liz what she is going to learn and take her through the process to accomplish the task. In this first step she is the observant participant with us – we do not require learning. 3. WATCH-EXPERIENCE - We repeat the experience with her contributing pieces of the learned task. 4. EXPERIENCE – WATCH - We repeat the experience with her contributing more pieces of the learned task and we begin to step away. 5. EXPERIENCE – SHOW – She tells me what to do and I laugh and become a partner in “her” learning. 6. SHOW – LET GO – She shows me as I watch and then let go. 7. I CAN – She skillfully and a bit fearfully completes the process, while I sit in a parking lot waiting or stay close to the phone to guide. I Can, can take a while and when learning is mastered we move on to the Next Step in our adult journey. We keep Liz tethered to us with a line of love - the same love line connection she used when she invited us to her home for a homemade turkey, gravy and mash potatoes, stuffing and cornbread. She did it! I only stopped by to demonstrate how to pull the neck out of the turkey and put the big bird in the oven. I left her to do the rest herself. I came back to read the recipe for stuffing out loud to her, while she prepared it and I demonstrated cooking the giblets. Then Karl and Bonnie arrived to join her and her boyfriend at her “own table” in her “own kitchen.” Her Christmas tree glowed red and green and white in an organized living room. It had been a long journey to get to this place and the journey will continue. Mak came to remind us of the management of that journey – kindness, compassion, clear simple direction – and only one step at a time. For a while we will keep Mak leashed to our side he lacks the skills to be independent. |
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Wishing you a joyous New Year and Survival
through the holidays.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jodee Kulp
Better Endings New Beginnings
email:
jodee@connetworks.com
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