Life Goes On

I have to admit, I did just that. I couldn't help it - what else was I supposed to do? I had no support system whatsoever. I didn't give up; I promised myself I wouldn't. I guess you can say I just tried to go about my daily life so that my days wouldn't revolve around waiting around for an update.

It was a good thing I didn't, because the only person that called me regularly was Sally. If I didn't hear from her for two weeks in a row, I would call her. She never had a real update for me; it was always the same "I don't know why they took him" kind of stuff. It still made no sense to me, but I kept the connection to her because it helped keep Ben in my mind. My days were never the same without him.

About three weeks after Ben was taken away, I had a conversation with Julie, the autism administrator of my agency. I told her how distraught I was, and that it killed me to see what happened to this child. She didn't know what the full story was, nor did anyone else.

Aside from pain on a personal level, I was having such difficulty knowing that Ben would now be regressing. I tried to explain this to Julie as professional as possible -- not an easy task, considering I had gotten really close to Ben on a personal level.

I wondered what had caused Ben to be removed from the home. I assumed it must have been serious because in essence, they had taken a special needs child away from his familiarity and stopped his therapy cold turkey. That wasn't fair to Ben. I pleaded with Julie to speak to social services so that I can at least resume therapy with him wherever he is now. After all, I wasn't his only therapist; there was Jessica, and also Bob, his speech therapist.

"That is not my department," Julie said. "I know it's unfair and I agree, but right now there's nothing we can do."

In the meantime, I kept busy with my other clients. I actually got really busy with one little boy named Scott. (I'll get into more details when Ben's story is finished. Scott's really worth mentioning - another little enigma!)

We were now in January. (Ben had been taken right before the holidays, the month before.) I began to look forward to a vacation I had planned with my husband for the end of the month. And that was pretty much it.