It's Just Too Close

I mean the case of Trudy Steuernagel and her son, Sky Walker. Steuernagel, a professor of political science at Kent State University, died last Friday from injuries from a beating by 18-year-old Walker. Walker, who's described as "severely autistic," is now being held on a $2 million bond of two charges, attempted murder of his mother and felonious assault on the police officer who found him in the basement. A story in ABC News today tells a lot more about mother and son. This part really hits home:

...she was always "Sky's mom" ahead of being Dr. Steuernagel. Even though Walker would never be able to achieve what her students had, Steuernagel delighted in what he could do.

"Trudy wouldn't have traded any of those bad moments at all," [Molly Merryman, a friend and Kent State University associate professor] said, "for being Sky's mom."

It's not just that I'm a professor with a son on the autism spectrum like Steuernagel. No matter what, I'm a mother first---yes, "Charlie's mom" before being "Professor Chew"---and I indeed would never trade in a single "bad moment" for being my son's mother.

But like Sky Walker, my son who's not even a teenager yet is bigger and stronger than me. He has been too big for me to scoop up in my arms since he was about 7, really; Charlie was a big baby and I always knew that the days when I could carry him away from any trouble would be finite. I've tried to take that knowledge and do the right thing by Charlie, to teach him how to deal with the distress, anxiety, frustration, that pepper his days and that he communicates only partially through words. Jim and I know that, as parents, hard choices are upon us, as we think about Charlie's future, the likelihood of him being six feet tall one day, and both of us getting older ourselves.

I just can't stop thinking about Sky Walker in the totally unfamiliar environment of a jail, without the one person who was his companion and support.

I think about what happened to her.

I'm grateful I'm able to rush home in a few hours, to see the yellow school bus and Charlie in the front right window, peering out at me from under the hood of his blue sweatshirt, and his lighter blue coat whose sleeves are already getting too short.