A Comment

A follower of this blog wrote the following response to yesterday’s post.  I posted it here as it beautifully sums up exactly what my husband, Richard and I also feel and why we work as hard as we do with Emma.

“I think maybe this is what most parents or carers of children with autism aspire to.  Not to extinguish quirks and unique personality traits, rather to help our children function in this world, to cope, to survive, to find happiness. It is not as simple as just accepting someone as being unique when they can’t go out in public without dropping to the ground and self harming over some issue or they can’t even attend to their own most basic needs when they  become distressed, when there is an unavoidable change in routine, when they cannot even travel safely in a car or bus ( we’ve been there believe me), when they have no way to communicate their needs or to even tell a parent they are in pain or scared or hungry, when they want to reach out to a friend, but don’t know how and so are left friendless, when they struggle to eat because the food repulses them, struggle to even hold a fork or use a knife. That is not something I will accept for my children. I want more for them than that. As a mother I have had to watch my children cry in pain and be unable to hold them in my arms and give them this most basic of comfort, rather being forced to witness their anguish and left helpless. These are things that need to be changed and worked on. If that is a “cure” bring it on I say.”

I have never met the woman who wrote this comment, but we have been corresponding now for awhile.  She has two children on the spectrum, each utterly unique.  Her comments are always thoughtful and insightful.  Though we live on separate continents with several oceans between us, we have a great deal in common.  So, to you Liz – thank you for blazing a trail and sharing about it.  You have helped me more than you can know.

For more on autism and my daughter, Emma’s journey through it, go to:  www.EmmasHopeBook.com