Prospects

Prospects, and having them or not, has been a topic of concern lately. It used to be the old fashioned term applied to the future state of wealth and security that a man might provide for his family. And prospectors were the old geezers who scrabbled for ore in the Wild West. Students looking for colleges would ask to receive a prospectus.


Today I came up with Prospects as the acronym to describe the support group for parents of special needs adults that I have helped to organize recently. It seems fitting because sometimes I think the prospects for my daughter are grim, especially when I wonder, in my arrogance, how she will manage without me when I'm gone (well okay, dead, actually). I think, too, that some of the other families I know with a loved one who doesn't fit into whatever "normal" society is, worry about the same thing.

Our group has been meeting on and off for about six months now, a half dozen families so far, in a church's classroom, for privacy that Starbucks can't provide and to be away from our own homes and the loved one whose prospects concern us. I'm one of the most fortunate because, for now at least, my daughter has a wonderful team of young women who support her, escort her, teach her, talk to her, soothe her, and do things I could never do as well as they do. I am trying to fade out of the loop of her care, though not the loop of loved ones, and it's bloody hard to do. Claw marks all over the place, not pretty.

So far, two of the other families have been encouraged to bring about some changes in their loved ones' lives by expanding their social contacts in different ways because of networking in this wonderful intimate parent group. It's a beautiful thing and if that's all we accomplish, it's enough. Though there's more to come. Our prospects are looking up. An article to be published very soon is going to have our name listed in the resources section and things will change.

So today I'm wondering about my own prospects and what a 66 year old woman could do to make a bigger splash in the pool of her life. Not being much of a swimmer, I've stayed close to the steps at the shallow end. I'm thinking though it's time to leap onto a kickboard and have a go in the deep end. Cheer for me please, will you?