Perspective

You know what's interesting? The way the conditions of your life can alter your perspective.

Ten years ago, if you'd told me my child would be in and out of psychiatric hospitals I'd had been appalled and aghast and scared as all get-out. I would have wept and prayed for something else, a different hand of cards -- and I am not a praying woman.

Now that it's happened that way, I'm just glad the hospital and its wonderful, caring staff exist. I'm glad when the next crisis arrives, Benjy will have a safe place to go, a place where he can heal. I am a bit sad that he won't be home for Hanukkah this year -- OK, very sad. And perplexed about what I can bring him (the electronic hang-man game I brought yesterday did not go over well. "Uh, we don't really like hang-man around here," the young woman who sits at the front desk told me).

Duh!

I did a bit of shopping the other day and picked up a 3-D puzzle of the Empire State Building for him. Cool, huh? But just now I noticed it's got a long point on the top. I don't know what it's made of but they'll NEVER let that thing on the unit. Lego kits work as long as they don't include little Lego guns.

You know what he really wants? I am not making this up. He really wants a bow and arrows.

Like that'll happen.

Even Benjy has an unusual perspective on the hospital. "You know," he told me at lunch today. "I may be coming back here. I don't know when, but it could happen."

"And how does that make you feel?" I asked him.

"I feel okay about it," he said. "Sometimes you just need a break, you know?"