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Ma Tovu
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Mothers & Daughters
By Alison Singer God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them.
~Author Unknown The first four times we went to Sharing Shabbat, the weekly children's service at our synagogue, we didn't make it through the opening prayer of Ma Tovu. I cried after the first two weeks, and by week four I was ready to give up. Perhaps it was a mistake to think Jodie could become a Bat Mitzvah. Jodie was diagnosed with autism when she was two and a half. Many parents of children with autism say the day their child was diagnosed was the worst day, and that after that initial shock, things improved. That hasn't been our experience. Every family celebration and milestone is bittersweet, because it is a reminder of Jodie's constant struggles. Looking at the empty seat at the Thanksgiving table after Jodie has gotten up after two minutes because she can't sit still is just as hard for me as it was to hear the initial diagnosis. I felt a huge emptiness at my brother-in-law's graduation; the whole family was there, except Jodie, who, despite being the oldest cousin, had to stay home with a babysitter. But I knew the hardest of all would be to let her Bat Mitzvah date pass by as if it were just any other day, without any sort of recognition or celebration. (Keep reading) | 
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