Josiah's Journey

Every night around 6:30 our phone would ring.  Josiah was calling.  We always knew.  Our only consistent daily contact with him while he was living one hour from home in a residential treatment center was our nightly phone calls.  I loved those calls.

The plan was for a staff member to dial the phone, hand it over to Josiah and leave the room so he could have some privacy during our conversations.  I knew it wouldn't work that way.  I had handed Josiah a phone before.  He threw it.  That's what he likes to do with things. 

Yet, every night he would call.  A voice on the other end would announce that Josiah was calling.  He's non-verbal.  He didn't talk.  He just listened.  Sometimes.  Sometimes he hung up on us.  Sometimes he dropped the phone and walked away. 

They learned quickly that putting the call on speaker phone worked better for Josiah.  He could be in the room, doing whatever he wanted to do and still hear us.  So, we talked and talked and talked. We passed the phone around to anyone who wanted to talk to him, in an effort to keep him on the phone, not wanting to let go of this tiny bit of time we could share with him. 

Occasionally we could hear him breath.  Not often.  But if we were quiet enough and attentive enough we could hear it.  Sweet, soft 8 year old, precious little boy breaths.  I loved that.  It was my only connection to him.  It made me smile.

Early on we realized we needed something more to do on the phone when he called.  It didn't take long each night to run out of sentences about our day.  We weren't even sure he was listening.  We weren't even sure he understood.  We inquired about Skype.  It would have been wonderful to see his little face and have him see ours every day.  It wasn't possible.  They didn't have the technology for it. 

So, we stumbled upon the idea of reading aloud a chapter a day from his Children's Bible.  And, Rick always prayed for him and for the staff who cared for him.  Somehow we managed to fill up 7 or 8 minutes on the phone nearly every night.

When it was my turn, I'd end by singing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.  You'll never know dear how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away."

Tears would well up and my voice would get thick with emotion.  They did take my sunshine away.  I didn't do anything to stop it.  I had let my little boy go. 

And then I'd sing the next verse, never really sure if it was actually part of the song or just a part I added from another.    "So let the sunshine in.  Face it with a grin.  Smilers never lose and frowners never win.  So let the sun shine in.  Face it with a grin.  Open up your heart and let the sunshine in."

It was all I could do some days to finish.  I was reassuring myself as much as I was reassuring Josiah.  We didn't have a choice at this point.  All we could do was leave it in God's hands.  Trust that it would all be okay.  Pray for the strength to make it through another day.

And, face it with a grin.