Overseen on NJ Transit: Planning for the future

Since Charlie had Thursday off from school, I took the train to work so he and Jim could have the car. Almost every seat was taken when I got on and I settled into a windowless row by the door. Neither the air-conditioning nor the lights were working. I put my coffee cup between my feet, pulled my bag (front pockets well-stocked with Kleenex and the other matériel one needs to get through a bad cold) onto my lap, and shut my eyes, and hoped I’d be able to keep my voice going through the day.

We three have been passing around this cold like a hot potato—Charlie first, then Jim and now me. Can’t say how grateful I felt that Jim could take care of Charlie on Charlie’s day off and that Jim was well enough to take Charlie on a long bike ride, on a very warm October afternoon.

Who will take of Charlie? Few questions run through my mind more. The question arises when I’m setting up my schedule of classes for the next year; when Charlie has a day off from school that I don’t; when I’m sick, or Jim is sick, or we’re both ill and worn-down. And what about when are older? Retired? With health problems of our own? And when one is on longer here to guide and be there, to protect and love?

How much of this worry leads people, leads parents, to wish they could ensure that a child with a lot of needs might be, would be, will be, okay?

The train was an express and took me all the way to Hoboken. I grabbed my coffee cup and pulled myself into the aisle. The words Special Needs Trust caught my eye: It part of the title of an article in what looked like the Wall Street Journal that a man in a dark gray suit was reading. I made a mental note to find the article later—–and here it is, with the title of An Estate Plan Built for Special Needs.

I’m making sure all of my family reads it. It doesn’t answer all of my questions, worries or fears about the future, but it reminds me that we can plan today to give Charlie what he needs tomorrow. And that, rather than try to wish away the future, we can face it and do what’s right for Charlie, today as surely as tomorrow.