Please be warned that this blog will VERY MUCH deviate from the normal mindless observations of yours truly and will instead for this blog, stirke a much louder and much more important chord.
April for several years now and for hopefully many, many more years going forward is designated as AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH. Before the month ends, I needed to, by my own words ask all of you to make the effort to consider EVERY month as Autism Awareness Month. While I can rattle of data of how many children now are now classified as autistic......and how more and more families are affected........how more and more children with autism are becoming adults with autism..........and how I can talk about the EXPLOSION of autistic children in our schools........on and on and on.........no, I'll just ask of all of you one thing, one word that is detailed in the autism banner for April.......that word is AWARENESS. Now, I would love for that word to be UNDERSTANDING, but one must walk before they can run. So before one can have understanding, one must have AWARENESS.
And when I ask for AWARENESS, it is not in the form of more complicated questions like.....What causes Autism? How many people are affected by Autism? What characteristics are prevelant in Autism? NO, it is someting much, much more basic than that. AWARENESS is seeing a kid acting up at the grocery store, instead of thinking....."Wow, what shitty parents those people are, look at that kid"......no, it might be that the child is autistic. When a child at church won't stay still or won't be quiet......don't prejudge the child or the parents. Just give them a kind hello or a warm smile as that child could be autistic. When a child may not be able to "fit in" or "seem odd".....be AWARE, that child could be autistic. Or when a child displays "inappropriate behavior" or lacks the "social graces", have a laugh about it as again, it might not be poor parenting, but it could be a child with autism.
While all of us as parents of autistic children would love to have understanding of our journey, the world unforunately is not that realistic and frankly not that kind. All we ask is AWARENESS, because while understanding may not come from AWARENESS, I believe that COMPASSSION can.
If life was perfect, we all could get paid and retire early for all the "would ofs" and "could ofs" and "should ofs" from our daily lives. But life does not play out that way. As a poker player, life is like poker......"you gotta play the hand that your dealt". While all of us would love to get a Royal Flush, some of us get a far less perfect hand, but we are left to make the best of it.
OUR GUY..........our guy is a very smart, very talented, very handsome and a VERY lovable 17 year old. Our days are filled, not with the upcoming Junior Prom, but with what Disney Princess he likes best. Our conversations are not about making certain to have safe sex, but to be safe crossing the street. We're not following him on Twitter, but talking about Tweety Bird instead. The 5 food groups are: McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendys and Applebees!!!
I have a copy of the following that I keep close by everyday. To me, it is the best encapsulation for all of us who are parents of a child with a disability:
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
I am oftern asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability--to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip--to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says. "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
The pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.
Emily Pearl Kingsley
Read that again. You can't begin to know how dead-on this passage is.
How much I would love to wake up and smell the roses in Italy. But you also don't know how incredible it can be everyday to get to wake up and smell the Tulips each day in Holland!!!
AWARENESS please.............
DogZog22
