Moving On

Her hair was a little more grey, her face had a few more lines, but the rest was the same as two years ago. Same glasses, same smile, same tiny little body. When our pediatric eye doctor of 13 years (17 years at that clinic) came in, it was like seeing an old friend. She knows Wil and laughs at his jokes. She knows what he can see, and how to get him to respond, even when he says with conviction, "I can't see a damn thing!"

We'd been through the rig-a-ma-roll a million times. When Wil first started there, he was non-verbal and had an eye that crossed (he still does). We had to go every three months, then every six months, eventually every year, and the last time we were there she said we didn't need to come back for two years.

We've had countless pairs of glasses. I've held him down and forced eye drops into his good eye, to make the weaker eye work harder, a billion brutal times. Three days before Wil's eye appointment he started getting very anxious, "There are going to be tears! A lot of tears! I am going to cry when they put the eye drops in my eyes!"

The whole thing is traumatic and PTSD-causing for all involved.

We'd had horrible traffic and then she was running behind, so the eye appointment was taking up our whole morning. We'd left our house at 8:15 and Wil "needed" to be back to school at 11:00, and it wasn't going to happen.

Anxiety increased. Irritation was high. General I-have-got-to-get-out-of-here was through the roof. For both of us. As I looked around the waiting room of young mothers, young children, toys, videos for preschoolers, I knew that neither of us could take it one more time. We'd originally planned to stay until he was 21, but I knew this would be it. This would be our last visit with our beloved friend and doctor. We were moving on.

Even when it's time. Even when it's your idea. Even when it's obvious and necessary and the only thing to do, moving on is hard to do.