Essay "what it means to be a grown up"

I found this essay today, that I had written 3 years ago. Made some edits... and here it is.  I was answering the question about becoming grown up.

Honey Moon full of dreams for the future

Real Simple Life Essay Contest

Julie A. Hasselberger

“When did you first realize that you had become a grown-up?”

Graduation day for my MBA with a concentration in Human Resources!

As a driven professional woman, I suppose I could write about working my way through college, or the three jobs I held while I completed my MBA at night.  Perhaps it was when I walked down the aisle and married my college sweetheart.   Buying our first house in Newtown CT,  (felt pretty grown up then, and scared).    Then having our first baby…it was like we were the epitomy of the typical couple following the steps into yuppie happy parenthood and career lives.     Through all of the steps I followed,  from high school to career as a successful and educated Human Resource Manager....    I always still felt free spirited, young, vibrant and ready to take a risk and live life.   We could go and do things even with our daughter, life was full of possibility and joy.      All of the normal things that most adults would classify as “I am now officially a grown up” , in reflection were still a joyful exciting time. Life was so perfectly laid out for my husband and I.   As if we had a  “rite of passage into the goals and dreams that I had so carefully planned out”.   But all of that was to changed drastically, and the plan fell apart.

Very early dreams that Sarah would love music!!!!!

Daniel as a baby...I was still working and he went to Merry Hill Daycae

 Daniel John Hasselberger, our son was born on November 22, 1997.  We celebrated with joy the birth of a son!  How perfect life seemed.  But the rhythym was changing.  There are no words to describe the feeling of having the doctors tell you that your son, your second born…the boy your husband had rejoiced about for months planning baseball and boy “stuff”… would spend his life in a wheelchair, diagnosed with a severe disability called “Polymicrogyria.”    You see, now I have this boy…who depends on me for every aspect of his life.  His health is fragile.  I left my career goals behind,  to be here to care for him.   Both my husband and I truly “grew up” when we became Daniel’s parents.  We were slammed with adversity and pain, and maturity shoved down our throats with having to adapt and reengineer life.

Now,  going through all of the activities of life and raising my children, includes pushing a wheelchair, changing diapers of a 14 year old, 911 calls, ambulance rides, surgeries, special equipment, communication tools, IEP meetings, 9 different specialists, therapies, home accommodations to have a safe place to care for this child who is fast growing into a young man.  So incredibly needy, and so amazing and wonderful….his lessons of gentleness and unconditional love have transformed my entire view of the world.

Sarah loved coming to visit me in my office at work!!! 

 I really loved my job at ITW Highland in Waterbury.  After Daniel's health insurance expenses soared, and I had another baby..Thomas..  my employer began treating me differently.  I went from being on the corporate succession plan, to being ignored for the bigger projects I was good at.  Although I had exemplary performance reviews and total dedication to the people I worked with and the Waterbury community...  I was "downsized".  With proof of discrimination, and many things that were either blatant or just didnt make sense,  I went to an attorney...and then realized that I didn't want to work for an employer who discriminated against a mom with a disabled child.  So I accepted the separation package and they consolidated plants and retained only one HR Manager instead of two.   I was totally devastated.   Shortly after that demoralizing episode, I wrote an article and the John Walsh show contacted me to be on the show.  

We were guest speakers on the John Walsh Show!!

John Walsh presented me with an entire home office!

Skiing ....  a passion we loved and still miss

 I sometimes remember back to  “the plan”…  and reflect back when I was working full time and loved my career.  I  enjoyed my independence and the satisfaction and confidence it brought me.  I made a very good salary and had a position with autonomy and decision making responsibilities.   I was a true “Working Mother”, and happy about it.       When my daughter was in day care, we had the whole balance thing all perfectly worked out.     The plan that most young families I know are engaged in.

Yes...I was a thin, fit Aerobics instructor and fitness trainer

 I still have this inner pain, and feeling that my freedom was taken from me. The boy was supposed to be the next step in the “perfect American Family”.   Instead he came to the world a very needy and very sickly child.  It hurts, and it stings, and I spent years in therapy and finding peace with my spiritual self.  I had to let go of the “why me”.  And hold on to the love that Daniel has brought to us.   It’s a transition that I think most parents of special needs children go through.

Being a Mom to a boy who cannot speak, walk, or do anything for himself…put me in a new classification.  No longer was I a career driven person.  I became Daniel’s Mom., and advocate, and source of all need.   Our world revolves around him.    Yes, he is fourteen now…and Yes…football games, recitals, musical concerts still make me cry and wonder what Daniel would have been able to do.     My other children..ages 16 and 11… are growing up here in Newtown and they are amazing kids, with compassion and talent and security from being in such a close community.   I do my best to meet everyone’s needs, but sometimes,  it is really isolating and sad to be the only mother on the football field with a boy in a chair, hooked up to his feeding pump.  Or the only family in theater, always searching for the handicapped space.

Sometimes it hits me that it has been over 6 months or so since my husband and I have had any time together.     We have nursing care, and that has helped.   But Daniel still needs me nearby, because a seizure or respiratory distress can happen at any time.

I became a grown-up, when I became Daniel’s Mom…because all that I was, and all that I dreamed of being had changed instantly.  My freedom was gone, to take risks and be the crazy girl that I loved to be.  Me, Julie, well, I  was a typical, outgoing , focused on myself, looks, nails, hair, clothes, always working out, full of pride, and  just being free willed. I remember feeling that we were going to be “that” family who goes skiing together, rides bikes together, goes on adventures together.    I had hoped that we would have that kind of fun with our kids.   Instead we faced the harsh reality of financial hardship, physical problems from stress and sleep deprivation, and relationships strained from the difficulties and degree of complexity that every day presented.  There would be no free spirited life for us.         

We loved to travel...had dreams of travelling all over the world...  Here on a sailing trip off of St. Lucia

This was in the days of "what ifs" and "why me"

 But in its place, is this magical young man, with the face of an angel. He is my world.  As long as his precious life remains in my care I will always do my best to take care of him.  Taking care of a special needs child, required that I grow up and face this responsibility, use all of my knowledge, assertiveness and abilities from my education and experience.  Take all that I have, and all that I am and use it now.  NOT for myself, for my family.     Daniel was my wake up call to being a grown-up.  To the reality that life has its own design and the best laid out plans are basically useless in our hands.  Being able to adapt in the worst of adversity, and still find joy and love in your life while providing for a family the best that you can. That, is what grown ups do.

Julie Hasselberger

Additional Information!!!            About Julie Hasselberger  

I am a 46 year old Mom of three kids, Sarah, Daniel, and Thomas…and married for almost 20 years to John.

  

This is the day I was baptized at Walnut Hill Community Church

I have been interviewed and praised for my tenacious strength to give this child everything in life he needs… and it is hard exasperating work.

Someday I would love to take all of these experiences and put them into a book…because life with Daniel is hysterical, frightening, and the most joyful lessons…that I ever thought imaginable.

Many years ago our entire family was invited to be guests on the “John Walsh Show”…  because my story about losing my job “due to Daniel’s disability diagnosis” and the impact it had on us…  was inspiring.  And I have a dream to share my inspirational experiences with other families that are facing the same kind of difficulties that we have faced over the past 14 1/2 years raising Daniel.

Julie and John Hasselberger

35 Bennetts Bridge Road

Sandy Hook, CT  06482

203 426 8674