Halloween used to break my heart. For parents of young children with special needs, it can be one of the hardest holidays.

For starters, there are real expectations put on kids during the annual door-to-door candy begging. They’re expected to go to a stranger’s house, hold out a bag, and say “trick or treat.” When you have a non-verbal boy, that can be an issue.

I know what you’re thinking. What about blue pumpkin pails? Those are for non-verbal kids. Autism Awareness has taught people to not expect words from a kid holding one. That should make the holiday easier…right?

Well, that wasn’t the issue for us. The issue was getting Lucas to go up to a stranger’s house at all. To this day, I’ve never been sure what the deal was, but getting him to walk up to a front door was like marching him to the electric chair. There was no way to get him even halfway across the yard before triggering a meltdown.

Every year, we made one attempt and every year, that one attempt ended any future attempts until the next Halloween. Lucas returned to his wagon to get pulled along as his sister and her friends went through the neighborhood.

Those friends, as sweet and kind as they all were, made things a bit harder too. Having a special needs child in your home can become routine. You are aware of the delays or disabilities and accept them in your life. I knew who my son was and I assumed that he was just slightly behind others his age.

That was because I didn’t usually interact with neurotypical kids his age. I rarely saw them. His sister was older and her friends were too. The boys and girls in Lucas’s class all had autism and special needs as well. So running into them at a school function only solidified my mental misconception that “this is how kids his age are.”

My daughter’s friends were older than Lucas, but their little brothers and sisters who came out on Halloween were his age. They were neurotypical and, as they were on full display, so were Lucas’s deficits. I watched as he sat in his red wagon, getting bigger each year, and other kids his age all ran around getting candy, telling knock-knock jokes, and doing trigonometry.

OK, that last one was an exaggeration but, at the time, it felt that way.

Despite his reluctance to move, Lucas never went without. His sister would come running back from the houses with a portion of candy she got for him and I loved her so much for that. Olivia was never ashamed of her brother and the yearly group photo always included him, even if I was in it too, trying to keep him from running off.

Eventually, she aged out of trick-or-treating, and it was just in time as Lucas had aged out of the wagon. Soon, the holiday had less to do with destinations and more to do with unique costumes. I’ve dressed him up as Raffi, Elvis, and other assorted characters off the beaten path. My little man has always been cool with whatever clothes I give him and costumes were no different.

The saddest thing about those early years was that I always assumed that we were missing out on memories. After all, I couldn’t even get him to walk down the street with people. It was a yearly disaster in my head that left me emotionally exhausted.

Today, Lucas is 13. He’s at an age where Halloween is cool, but it’s not really geared towards kids in his age bracket. He can wear a costume, see his friend Christian, and enjoy candy that the door-knockers haven’t taken yet. No pressure for him. No pressure for me. That can be our Halloween and we’re more than happy with that.

It took until now to realize how wrong I was about those early years and how I’d remember them. I thought that those nights of pulling Lucas along the block in a wagon were wasted. In my mind, I wasn’t creating memories with him because we weren’t doing the holiday “correctly.”

If you’re a parent currently going through that pain, let me help alleviate it a bit. However you’re doing it, you’re doing it right. You’re creating wonderful memories even when you don’t realize it.

I remember that wagon and the little boy in it. I can see his Olaf the Snowman costume with orange dust from Cheetos all around his face. I remember my daughter, when she was still my baby, running up to him with handfuls of candy. I see it all in my mind and I smile. That’s what memories are.

These early years, even the ones that seem to be missing something at the time, are moments you will miss when they’re gone. You don’t have to do things “correctly” or by the book. You just need to be with your children. The time you spend together will stay in your mind and in your heart, no matter what you do.

That’s something I keep in mind when making new memories with Lucas. I know that none of us need to be perfect and the day doesn’t have to go exactly as it is supposed to. Tomorrow, I will remember today fondly and miss him when he was this age. I know it will happen because it already has.

Life is what you make it and the things we remember go along with that. What feels like a trick could often be a treat. You just need to step back to see it.