"When you grow up"..that’s the
mantra of young parents. The diaper changing, feeding, teaching them
everything..and the time comes when kids
want to do everything on their own and then as a parent we tell them to wait
for sometime.. you do everything on your own when you are older. I am sure many
of you with older children remember the teen years and could not wait for them
to go to college.
Applying for guardianship was
one those “undo” things for me. I struggled and fought within, whether it was
the right thing to do or not. But I know very well that he is not ready to make
his own decisions at least for now. He needs us and so we are going through the
process.
I have heard so much about
the process of applying for guardianship and now know how emotionally tiring it
can be. Not only because of the process, but the paperwork as well and the
complications of not knowing anything about it.
I had been prepping and
working on getting the paper work ready. Everybody goes through an attorney so
no one knew everything or had all the information. I got bits and pieces of
information from friends and acquaintances. I thought we were doing OK prep
wise. In between I had some hiccups and was in panic mode that we were late but
friends assured us that we were doing fine. Thank goodness for these friends,
lucky me. We found an attorney through the work supported legal service and I
sent him the paperwork. As luck would have it, he didn’t bother to look at them
for weeks and then when I reminded him again and again he finally looked at it
and said he didn’t think the judge would agree as Anand doesn’t fall into
intellectual disability. I insisted we still wanted to go ahead with the
process because Anand’s doctor and therapist were so sure we should do it.
Finally he refused to do it..
and I cannot tell you how disastrous and unnerving that thought was.
I stayed awake that night,
and yes it was July 4th when everyone is busy. By the end of it I decided I
will do it myself. I think that’s why it happened to us so I could write this
post and assure people that it is not that scary.
So here I was all ready and
on the road by 7:45 in the morning to go to Canton court on July 5th. Not
knowing anything but determined to learn. I met the best security guys and then
I was at the counter talking to the mom on the other side who had been through
the process with her own son. How lucky I was, she fully understood how
disappointed and worried I was. She listened to the whole story and explained
how the process works and what I needed to do. Directed me to the volunteer
lawyer of the day to help with paper work. When I left the office, I was in a
much better state of mind. We filled the papers at home that night and I
realized how intimidating this could be for anyone. Lots of papers and legal
jargon for regular people who have no
idea. Next day I was back in the office, someone took the time to go through
the paperwork and explained the process again and it was done just like that. I
thanked each one of them, noted their names and walked out of the building on a
rainy Friday with a feeling of gratitude and relief as well as accomplishment.
As of now I feel it had to happen so I can talk about one more thing in my
blogs. I can tell you that it’s ok to be
overwhelmed, scared and worried but in the end it will work out. If it hadn’t
worked out I might be writing another post, meanwhile I am still on the look
out for an attorney to go to court with us on hearing day. Stay tuned for the
next part.
My soon to be adult son.. Technically he
should be on his own, make his own decision.. I cannot tell you how much I want
that but the reality is we still cannot
let him be the "adult" We locked out of our car and that how we
waited for AAA to come and save us :)
One of my favorite picture of
Anand and I.. we were getting ready to go for a wedding and he just didn't want
to do anything with formal clothing or picture..He later agreed to button down
shirt and jeans and that was a big deal for me.
Anand did look like an adult .. he is all tall as his dad and fit into men's clothing now..he got ready for senior prom and agreed to be in picture.
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