William has finally received a discharge/admission date for his move from residential to a group home!  We are anxiously counting down the days to his transition, which he has been ready for for months.

OK, maybe a little background information would be nice.

For those of you who don't know, we were put in a position one year ago in march where we had to choose to move William out of the house for the safety of his brothers.  William has very violent tendencies, and one night he targeted his younger brother and was going to kill him.  Fortunately for all of us, his brother runs faster and was able to get away.  To this day I have no doubt that William would have attempted, and possibly succeeded in his plan if he had gotten ahold of his brother.

We chose at that point to make the hardest decision a parent can ever make.  We chose one son over the other for the sake of both of them.  We knew that we could place William in a safe environment that had the supervision he needed, and we knew that we could keep his brothers safe if we were not competing with William.  So the choice was easy, though making the decision was heartbreaking.

So here we are one + years later.  The two brothers get along like they are best friends!  William does not hate us for our decision, we have worked hard to assure him that he is loved and valued.  We have family times together like we have never been able to have until now.  It is all  rather nice and serine!

So now our boy is moving to an adult group home!  (He is 18 now afterall!).  He will share an apartment with 3 other guys in a house that has 2 apartments and a "common area" for therapy and such.  It promises to be an amazing step forward for him!  Independence and oversight to teach him how to navigate the real world (which is totally different in the mind of a Schizophrenic).

I am so proud of him!  He has matured greatly in the past year, sadly he has also seen things that a protective parent does not want for their child.  Where he has been living there have been multiple shootings (one that he witnessed) as well as thefts.  There are alot of fist fights that occur on a regular basis (which he now considers entertainment).  But he has held up well and learned alot.  He has taken from this, the fact that fighting is overrated and that most things that people fight about aren't worth the time.  He is a changed man!

And soon, VERY soon, he will be an independent man.  Something that I never thought I would see for my autistic/schizophrenic child.  I am truly blessed in this world!