When I was in graduate school, I worked with preschool age children with autism. It was challenging work, but also super rewarding. One of the parents gave me the poem below for Christmas. I still have it in my bookshelf all these years later (and I am still friends with most of the parents of those kiddos).
My main job in life was to teach my kiddos to never give up and always be Keymakers. This summer I have watched them as adults embrace that very important life skill, and it has been super rewarding to watch.
My girl had grant funding to do research in Kenya for her environmental studies major. Plans were made and the last week of the semester the professor she was supposed to do that research with was denied tenure. Trip cancelled. Most undergrad students would have given up. Nope, not my girl. She pivoted and created a new plan in Uganda… during exam week. I will admit when she presented this plan to us at a breakfast place, I was a bit taken aback. But I could not shake the never give up attitude I instilled in her. And seeing the pictures during her trip with her glowing smile made me glad I reluctantly agreed to allow her to go.
Now for my guy. He has been my glue for all the moves. His calming presence helped keep our family intact during all of the stress and trauma of the last two years. And he has become quite the problem solver as an adult. Here are a few examples. Our new house had a functioning ice maker. We have never had one with all of our refrigerators over years – cheap ones, nice ones, the ice makers never worked. When it stopped working two weeks into living here, I gave up and started using my old fashioned ice trays again. Aidan would not quit tinkering with the ice maker. He finally took it completely apart and found a giant clump of ice blocking any ice from making it from the ice maker. It is back to producing any kind of ice I like. Next, my DIY chicken coop. I got the main structure put together, but the door was just too hard. I could not figure out the instructions and decided I would create a door opening with the netting and a carabiner. Aidan watched me and exclaimed that it was too painful to see me try to put the door together. Within 10 minutes, I had a fully functioning door.
I am proud that I have two Keymakers as adult kiddos. People who do not give up when things are hard. We need more people in the world who see a closed door, try the knob, if it doesn’t open, they find a key, and if the key doesn’t fit, they make one.