The Caffeinated Advocate

Last night was hard. More like gut-wrenching. Our community lost an amazing man yesterday, and I learned of this loss when I got home from my typical Friday night grocery jaunt with my crew. He (I'll call him Trevor for anonymity's sake) had so many talents - the arts, music, photography, not to mention being a kick-ass clinician and teacher by day and passionate advocate. He was also a devoted husband to an incredible woman and loving father of beautiful young children. I had to read the post in our private Facebook group a few times before reality set in. Moments later came the hand over my mouth, tears welling in my eyes, and then ... "Why didn't I say something?" Weeks ago, I happened to come across one of Trevor's posts in my feed, and what he shared was deeply personal. What followed for days afterwards was fairly dark and he soon removed that jarring post revealing something that I believe under typical circumstances he would not have written ...

In the driver's seat means that one is in a position to take control. Oh, son, how you have placed yourself in the driver's seat in more ways than one. What a year this is turning out to be for me and for Christian. Those who follow my work and my social media platforms closely see that I have quite a lot of excitement going on. More about that at the end, because this post is not meant to be focused on me. It's about Chris and his massive success. As you can see here, as part of finding his way in this world, Chris is focused on becoming a licensed driver. He has come a long way in the past five months from the first Sunday afternoon when we drove around the school parking lot together. I legitimately thought I was going to go through the windshield when he applied the brakes at his first stop sign. Poor Snowflake (for those who don't know, that is my Jeep daughter's name. My Jeeps are girls. Don't judge me). Well, goodness knows during my fi...