It Started with a Feeling
Something in me knew — the way mothers know things before anyone puts a name to them.
When Nick was around two years old, I noticed he wasn't hitting the milestones other kids were reaching. Something in me knew — the way mothers know things before anyone puts a name to them.
At four, he was diagnosed with a Specific Learning Disorder. At eleven, that diagnosis expanded to include an Intellectual Disability. And somewhere in between those two moments, I went through something I don't think we talk about enough in special needs parenting — denial.
For a couple of months, I couldn't fully accept what our life was going to look like. The future I had imagined shifted. The definition of normal that I had been carrying quietly let go of my hand and walked away. And I had to grieve that — before I could show up fully for my son.
What brought me back was my husband Alonza sitting across from me and saying something I needed to hear: this is something we have to accept. God wouldn't give us this journey if He didn't think we could handle it.
Nick is 21 now. He graduated high school. He works. He laughs. He is, in every way that matters, what I call my kind of special — and I mean that in the best possible way.
He looks like any other young man you'd pass on the street. But our journey together has included IEP meetings, evaluations, school system battles, therapy schedules, and more paperwork than I can count. It has tested my faith, my patience, and my reason for being.
And it has given me more purpose than anything else in my life.
I learned how to read an IEP. I learned how to sit at that table and advocate without apologizing. I learned that the system is not designed to make this easy — and that parents need someone in their corner who actually knows how it works.
So I became that person. First for Nick. Then for every parent who needed someone who had already been in the room.
What This Journey Taught Me
I became that person. First for Nick. Then for every parent who needed someone who had already been in the room