It
means watching the beautiful, perfect baby you gave birth to, who
carried all the usual hopes and dreams and proud ambitions that parents
bestow on their child, quietly slip away, a little piece at a time,
until all those dreams have utterly disappeared.
It means having
to learn to live with and accept a stranger who wears your child's
face- a ghost who prefers staring at a blank wall to pictures books,
who never meets your gaze or seeks your touch, who is driven by urges
and instincts that nobody else can begin to comprehend.
Autism means the bleak realization that a mother's love isn't always enough.
Autism
means quiet tears at 3 A.M. It means unexpected joy at the smallest of
life's mercies: a crooked smile, a shirt buttoned, a word remembered, a
name scrawled uncertainly on a piece of paper.
It means often
feeling isolated and being misunderstood, even by those who love you
best. It means experiencing the very best and the very worst that
people can be, it means discovering coldness in the hearts of friends
and immense kindness in the smiles of relative strangers. It means
discovering that there are many worse things than being different, but
none worse than being ignorant.
Autism means receiving praise when all you want is help, pity when all you really need is rest.
Having
a autistic child means realizing that even the most learned of doctors
can be a fool and the most qualified of teachers can be ignorant.
It
means still believing in miracles even though you know the time for
miracles is long past due. Autism means secret prayers to a god you are
no longer sure of.
Autism means frustration, humiliation, sorrow,
confusion, helplessness, and beneath them all, a slow-burning sense of
rage at the injustice of it all. To have a autistic child is to fear
the future, not because it is uncertain but because it is so lacking in
possibilities.
Autism means years of bitter denial before finally
finding the peace that comes with acceptance. It means learning that
perfection is a myth and homogeneity is to fought against. It means
understanding humanity's real triumph is diversity, not uniformity.
Autism
means telling your child you love her and realizing that, despite the
years of pain and despair, you truly mean every word you say.
What does AUTISM mean? The answer is simple. It means everything and nothing at all.
By: A proud mommy of a beautiful Autistic daughter.
Tiffany Telder
