Autism Awareness

Around here, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1—also called Asperger’s Syndrome—is a person. Here, Autism awareness is simply a part of everyday life.

It’s the gift of someone who reflects the brilliance & creativity of the Creator—with his own intricate thoughts & experiences, joys & disappointments, dreams & imaginings, strengths, & weaknesses—just like every other person.

It’s learning how to think in a new way, communicate in a new way. It’s learning how to empathize, understand, react, & see in new ways.

It’s big marvels & little worries. It’s little marvels & big worries. It’s once-overwhelming unseens that are now just our daily normal, like the trek back & forth to ABA therapy that became a surprising time of family bonding.

It’s the usual meetings & phone calls. It’s the pivotal moments of mama bear advocacy, where—despite the fire in my belly—I wonder if I’ll ever be strong enough, equipped enough, educated enough, effective enough. Until love once more carries us further than I ever imagined.

It’s understanding that advocacy means teamwork, and wondering again why I’m surprised that the team is so invested in the ultimate good of the same heart & soul for whom I’d unquestioningly give my life.

It’s failing in a thousand ways and trying a thousand more. It’s stretching and stepping outside of myself in ways I never knew I would, never knew I could, never knew I needed to—and being a million times better for it.

It’s pressing down the long, winding road, always training my eyes ahead, trying to blindly prepare for the future, to maximize the present—and rejoicing over short term wins—but one day glancing back and stopping cold in utter astonishment to absorb the view from whence we came, filled with incredible long-term gains.

It’s the value of a soul so eternally precious, a soul who refines my own in so many ways that it takes my breath away, & forms the whisper of an eternal song of thanksgiving  springing from the center of my heart directly to the Creator’s ear.

Around here, Autism awareness is a network of love so fierce it creates its own heartbeat. Here, I’m becoming an eternally better version of myself.

This lesson of mine is indeed the lesson of all motherhood. In our initial naïveté we hold an expectation a child, a little being to answer our dreams who will be perfect for us; but we are gifted with a child who is made to be perfectly himself or herself.

Indeed, if we could see the challenges in advance that didn’t match our perfect{ly two dimensional} picture, we would likely refuse it all, and in doing so, sadly forfeit the all indescribable gifts.

But, to the benefit of humanity, we are not matched with the perfect child for us—at least in our current state. We’re instead gifted with children who help teach us to become the mother they need, children who help us become more selflessly the whole of who we are ultimately meant to be.