The mothers who have in their care a child with special needs sometimes share a meal. This week the menu was indeed delicious, leaning heavily on salads and home grown zucchini, with sour dough bread fresh from the oven and a fruit flan. It was lady fare. I think my kids at home had leftovers. 

The evening is spent with one woman at a time describing how her son or daughter is doing. She talks longer if things have been rough, less if all is stable. Since we have been gathering annually for over a decade, we have kept up with surgeries, health setbacks, struggles to find good programs, disappointments around placements. When someone finds an especially rewarding camp or wrap around therapist, we rejoice. Probably our progeny have no idea of the collective love emanating from this circle. Which is how it should be. I doubt that they congregate to discuss their parents. 

This week the stories seemed especially heavy, with loneliness being a theme. Friendship does not come easily with people for whom emotions can be unruly, and social clues are a foreign language. It can be heartbreaking to watch your grown child spend much of their time in angst, or solitude. There are no bars but it can still feel like confinement.  

Yet even as I grieved for the collective struggles of these children for whom life has granted a heftier share of obstacles, I was moved by the grit of their mothers. One said she works out for the purpose of being able to carry her flailing child during a meltdown. Another has been nicknamed doctor by her son's team in honor of the tenacity of her research. 

Tigers, all of them. But they are ladies too.