autism – Page 6 – Good Marching

by Kristen - July 25, 2014

Family Togetherness

George Burns once said that happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

In that case, my husband and I are ecstatic.

Andy has such a family, spanning multiple cities near and far. We all get together in July at an annual party my in-laws have hosted at their Michigan cottage for over three decades. This close-knit group takes family seriously, gathering for Independence Day whenever the circumstances of their lives permit.

I’ve been attending this party since 1998, that first summer when we were “Andy’s girlfriend and her eight-year-old daughter.” His family’s generous welcome swept Natalie into a tide of exuberant children as I was embraced by grown-ups thrilled that cousin Andy had finally found “the one.”

The party has been a focal point of my summer for years. Yet it’s been years since I felt truly whole at this model of family togetherness. It’s been years since Daniel has been with us.

***

Days of list-making and strategizing helped quell my apprehension as I prepared for those weekends, and the unpredictable outbursts that marked Daniel’s life, especially in an unfamiliar setting. No excursion was simple with my special little boy, least of all traveling three and a half hours for a long weekend away from home. I knew my son’s quirks and needs would likely trump my fantasy of a breezy weekend together. But those trips to Michigan were the only vacations we took back then, and we looked forward to them, particularly my husband, whose business keeps him busy from March through Labor Day. This is the only weekend he takes all summer to enjoy his parents’ cottage and see his extended family. It was an effort well worth making.

I never really relaxed on those trips, running after Daniel and monitoring his conduct, aware that his unusual behavior can be intrusive. It was exhausting, in fact, keeping him on track and occupied, his interests so often at odds with the agenda at hand, cut off from the stability of home and routine.

It was worth it to me, though. Of course it was. We were attending a family party, and Daniel was part of that family, too.

And Daniel loved the cottage, racing down the wooden steps to the long stretch of beach, smoother than the rockier shores on the Chicago side of the lake, free of disquieting, public crowds. He ran up and down the sand for hours, mesmerized by the pulse of waves across his feet, delighted by the splashes he made, again and again, tossing sticks and pebbles into the lapping water.

I didn’t mind chasing him when he strayed too far, bundling him in a towel and checking for sunburn; climbing the steps for bathroom breaks, cooling him with juice boxes and damp cloths to his forehead, then following him back to the beach for another round.

I didn’t begrudge Andy’s absence during those long afternoons, as he led the party’s golf tournament at the local course. He needed those unburdened hours, reconnecting with cousins he’s kept close since childhood. I got to know the beach-going contingent, through snatched conversations as I followed Daniel’s erratic motion up and down the shore. Supervising him was becoming a two-man operation, but I could still manage him by myself for an afternoon.

Until the inevitable breakdown, stoked by sun, sensory overload, and a boisterous, unstructured milieu. Daniel’s changes of mood, his wild, sudden tantrums, were nothing new, but more difficult to weather away from home. I’d hustle him to our bedroom and a soothing bath, lay quietly with him across the bed, stroking his back and singing softly against his ear until he finally settled and calmed.

By which time he was ready to leave all together, just as the evening of the all-day affair was getting underway. He’d pull me repeatedly to his travel bag, asking for home, or make his way down to the car when my back was turned, until at last I’d get him to sleep, and could rejoin the party for its few remaining hours.

***

I don’t remember making the decision to leave him behind, secure in the knowledge that he’d enjoy himself, as he always did, at his father and step-mother’s home. Perhaps I reminded myself that he would in fact be happier, no longer forced to endure an event which ultimately left him overwrought and overwhelmed. One year we simply conceded that the sprawling, festive party the rest of us enjoyed was not right for my son, however much I wanted it to be.

It was the right decision. I know this. The rest of us needed down time, freedom, for Andy to reinforce the relationships he’s maintained through his lifetime, for Natalie and I to find our places in the family we now called our own.

But the party was never the same, for me, without him.

And I understand now that the party was never the same with him, either, never matching the scenario I’d imagined, the nurturing, familial experience I wanted so badly to find in this occasion, for both my precious children. Autism had already shredded the screenplay I was still trying to direct; I was merely clinging to pages of an untenable script, unwilling to accept that my family could never enact the story my heart had written. This happy party scene had already been scrapped from the film of our lives together. I just wasn’t ready to let it go.

***

The parties are easier for me now. I can engage, and laugh, and converse, and, in recent years, help run the whole companionable show, unencumbered by my son’s needs and demands, my simmering worry that he’d turn miserable and unreachable in the midst of all the wonderful togetherness.

I still remember, though, the moments when he was happy there, lulled by the motion of waves and the warm sand beneath his feet. I remember his joy as he ran to toss another stick across the water, pleased with his accomplishment, twisting his fingers in front of his face as he does when he is happy. I wish those moments could have lasted, could have been enough to make the experience whole. But they are what we have, and I cherish their memory.

A few years ago I called to tell Daniel’s group home director that I wouldn’t be visiting that weekend because I’d be in Michigan for a family reunion. I described our earlier visits to the cottage, how we tried to make those weekends happen in spite of Daniel’s limitations.

“He loved it there, Sam,” I told him. “He loved the beach, if just for a little while.” My voice broke with unhealed regret. Daniel had been going through a rough patch in recent months, and I felt guilty that I wouldn’t be visiting. “I just can’t accept it, that he may never see that beach again.”

Sam was silent for a moment, then spoke with the quiet confidence that always reassured me.

“You’ll get him there, Kristen,” he told me gently. “It may take 15 years, but you’ll get him there again, someday.”

I’m holding on to that script for now.

There are still scenes of our lives yet to be written.

by Kristen - June 12, 2014

A Girl Like You

As a teenager my daughter claimed an aversion to alarm clocks. Although perfectly capable of getting up on her own, she maintained that the raucous jolt of an alarm set a negative tone for her whole day. She begged me to wake her personally.

Being a loving mother I obliged, devising a wake-up formula just for her.

She really would have fared better with an alarm clock.

Barging into her bedroom each morning, I’d launch into one of several inane monologues, which all shared a unifying theme.

“Girls like you,” I’d bellow, “you want to sleep late in the morning. But your moms won’t let you.” Or, “Girls like you, you think because you’re 16 you can get up when you want. Forget that!” And occasionally, “Girls like you, you wish your moms would go back where they came from. But they’re not gonna.”

Why I fastened on the phrase “girls like you” is a mystery hardly worth probing. Perhaps an old boyfriend’s frequent muttering of a song refrain that’s stuck in my head since the mid-eighties — “Girls like you always like my style” — was the genesis of the whole thing.

Whatever its source, the “girls like you” drill became entrenched, despite Natalie’s pleas for me to “Stop!” as she pulled the duvet over her head and rolled to face the wall.

For good measure I’d confirm that she wouldn’t go back to sleep when I returned downstairs. “Can I really trust you to get up?” (shortened over time to “Can you be trusted?”) I’d wait by the door for her aggrieved but unfailing response: “Yes! I can be trusted!”

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Yet it is one of my fondest memories, a pattern woven into the fabric of our lives together, as my daughter grew from a child into the young woman she is now, ready to start the next chapter in her life.

A week from now she’ll receive a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Northwestern University. My pride in her as one of the top students in her class is matched only by my certainty that she will make a positive mark on the world.

Do you remember those mornings, too, Natalie? Did you take comfort in a ritual that was ours alone? Sometimes I allow myself to believe that it was all a front, that your alarm clock phobia was simply a reason to feel me close as you began each day, bracing for whatever challenges adolescence threw your way, strengthened by the knowledge that I was in your corner.

I hope that was part of it, that you recognized that my love for you will transcend whatever unfolds, and you know that wherever life takes you now, I will always be behind you.

If only the act of waking you each morning could truly have shielded you, magically softened the experiences I never wanted you to know, the losses and heartbreak I’d give anything to have removed from your path. I wish your passage to adulthood had been gentler, untouched by divorce and the sudden deaths of friends, the loss of my parents when you hadn’t yet fully known them, the profound upheaval of the family your father and I had imagined for you before autism changed our lives.

If love was all it took, your life would have unfolded as effortlessly as I’d dreamed it would when you were a little girl, running barefoot down the sidewalk in a flowered dress on a summer evening, laughing with the unfettered delight that was uniquely yours. I wish I could have captured that moment for you, and made it last forever.

But that wasn’t necessary, after all, for you to become the remarkable young woman you are today. There is something magic in you that did the job on its own.

Do you remember when I started calling you my shining star? That’s all right; I can’t remember, either. It has simply always been so. You are the daughter every parent hopes for: smart and kind, engaging and beautiful and naturally, genuinely good. A leader who accepts responsibility even when you doubt your abilities, a friend who can be counted upon, a sibling to a boy who has been blessed beyond measure to have you in his corner.

Even as his disability altered your life so dramatically, as his needs so often eclipsed your own, you embraced him, loving him even when he didn’t express that love in return. You’ve never stopped trying to reach him, to convey your devotion in a way he will understand. And there is no doubt in my mind that he does understand. The strength of your love broke through.

You’re probably reading this and crying “Stop!” as you did all those mornings when I jarred you annoyingly from sleep. Don’t worry. I’m not claiming that you excelled at everything. Piano lessons, for example, come to mind.

What sets you apart is your willingness to try, to test yourself, your commitment to see things through without giving up. You’ve gone forward even when you felt like quitting, and have inspired me to do the same. You have forged the painful chapters of your life into something meaningful, something hopeful and positive and worthwhile.

Stop rolling your eyes; it’s not just your mom saying these things. Remember what your teachers have told you for the last two years: you are incredibly smart, gifted and compassionate; you have what it takes to be an excellent, effective therapist; and most important of all: you have a good soul.

Looking back now, I realize I had it wrong all those mornings with my “girls like you” routine. There is no one else in the world like you, beautiful Natalie. A girl like you is one of a kind.

My aim as your mother has always been to give you and Daniel what each of you needs, in spite of your vastly different abilities. I prayed that I would not let your brother’s disability cripple me, so that in turn I crippled you; that I would not hold you back through my own grief and self-doubt, that my longing to protect you as recompense for autism’s impact would not hinder your own confidence and initiative.

I don’t know if I succeeded. I pray you will forgive me for all I’ve done wrong. But it doesn’t really matter if I succeeded or not. Because you have.

Your success is demonstrated in the way you are living right now, as I write this, with details still uncertain, as you are waiting to see what lies just beyond your sight. And waiting for what is yet to be revealed is one of the hardest things in the world to endure.

But you are doing it, my beautiful girl. You keep moving forward, strong enough to confess your fears even as you take the next step, and the next after that. You remind me of your grandfather, who knew the only way through it is through it, who put one foot in front of the other until he reached where he aimed to go. He is smiling down on you now, sweet Natalie. He is so incredibly proud of you, as am I.

Each day I marvel anew at the woman you have become, standing on the threshold of independence and all the wonder the world has in store. I know you will never give up until you have found your true place, the place you are meant to be. And you will make that place better than it was before. This is one thing I know for sure.

You can be trusted.

by Kristen - June 5, 2014June 5, 2014

The Garbage Ditch

My friend David Royko, whose blog, The Chronicles of Ben, relates his family’s experience with severe autism, recently posted a story on Facebook about a man who had confronted his young son’s bully.

The story has drawn nearly 12,000 comments on the Yahoo!News site from which David pulled the story.

Not surprising, as the headline blazed, “This man pummeled an 11-year-old kid for bullying his 9-year-old autistic son.”

According to the article, the father boarded the school bus his son rode, and targeted the child his son pointed out as his persecutor.

“The father grabbed the 11-year old by the hair, pulled hard and raised the child out of his seat, then shoved him on the side of the bus where the window meets the wall,” Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan told CBS San Francisco.

Charged with child abuse and bodily injury to a child, Burnis Hurd remains jailed pending $50,000 bond.

While many of those commenting on this story disapproved of his tactics, most seemed to at least understand the father’s fury at his son’s tormentor.

I fall into that camp of thinking.

Of course I don’t condone adults abusing children, under any circumstances. Few of us do.

But I understand how chronic worry, stress and fear for our children could lead to behavior we’d never deem ourselves capable of, until we’ve experienced these emotions on a daily, relentless basis.

****

Yesterday I received another email from my son’s group home director, detailing several recent escapes, or “elopements” as they are called in the adult family home business.

Apparently seeking the soda over which he’s become so obsessed, Daniel ran outside while staff’s backs were turned, entered the house next door, and helped himself to soft drinks sitting on the kitchen counter. Close on his heels, staff shepherded Daniel quickly back home and smoothed things over with the neighboring family.

He bolted again the next day, and while staff intercepted him on the sidewalk, the neighbors this time called the police when they saw him coming.

Officers responded, conferred with the group home staff who explained Daniel’s situation, and, according to the email, “all was fine.”

The email continued, outlining another confrontation my son had that very morning with a peer at his day program, another scuffle over a cup of coffee resulting in Daniel being struck with the coffee mug.

Distressing news in itself. But my mind was still frozen on the image of my non-verbal, autistic son, unable to explain his actions (assuming he understands them himself) when confronted by armed police and a home owner justifiably furious at a 22-year-old breaking into his home.

Consumed by a panicked restlessness, I wanted to take action, any action, to relieve my mounting hysteria at one more piece of unnerving news: fury at the neighbors who called police; at the group home staff; at my son’s insistence on behaving this way; at the ghastly twist of fate that burdened him with autism.

My first impulse was to call my son’s group home director or shoot off an enraged email demanding to know what the hell was going on, why they weren’t safeguarding my son. But I believe they are doing the best they can with Daniel, a difficult client whose obsessions are matched only by his cunning at fulfilling them. I needed to calm down before I responded.

“I’m going over to the police station,” I abruptly told my husband, fueled by a sudden urge to speak to the communications officer I’ve known for some years, who heads up our police department’s efforts to protect its disabled citizens through awareness and tracking programs.

“Is she expecting you?” the receptionist asked when I arrived at the station.

“No,” I replied, giving my name.

“What is this regarding?”

“Project Lifesaver,” I answered, referring the program wherein disabled residents may be equipped with a microchip, fastened to clothing or shoelaces, which can trace their whereabouts should they wander from home. By now I’d formulated a vague plan to get some literature on the program to share with my son’s group home director, or the police department in the town in which he lives.

After making a call, the receptionist told me the officer I sought was in a meeting. “Your best bet is to leave her a voice mail.”

“Is there anyone else I can talk to about Project Lifesaver?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry, you’d really have to talk to her.”

“Do you have any literature on the program?” I persisted.

She shook her head with seeming regret. “You’d really need to talk to her.”

Disappointed, I turned to go, then asked, “Can you let her know I stopped by?”

“I can’t guarantee she’d get that message,” she replied. “It’s best to reach her by phone.”

Emotional and irrationally irked by her blithe response, I plunged recklessly forward. “So, you don’t have, like, a message system, little cubby holes or something, where you could leave a note for her?”

She’d gotten up from her desk by this time, and came toward the bulletproof glass separating us. “I could leave it on her desk,” she replied, as if speaking to a child. “But I have no way of telling when she may get the message.”

Accepting I was beaten, and recognizing that it was perhaps unwise to create a scene inside a police station, I left, fighting tears of rage and helplessness as I hurried back to my car.

My husband bore the brunt of my emotional overload when I got home.

“She didn’t want to be bothered taking a message! I mean, I completely get that she was in a meeting! I didn’t expect her to come running out! But the receptionist did nothing to help me when I was in obvious distress! Aren’t they supposed to respond to citizens of the community? What if I’d been in real trouble? What if I was teetering on suicide? What if I was, say, a teenager who had just given birth in her car, and wanted to talk to the one cop she knew before abandoning her baby? Instead of leaving her baby at a Safe Haven zone, she could have ended up doing anything! She could have left her baby in a garbage ditch!”

My husband remained calm throughout my tirade, waiting patiently until I came to a breathless halt.

“‘Garbage ditch’?” He squinted his eyes. “What’s a ‘garbage ditch’?”

****

Years of incidents with my son have yet to desensitize me to the often irrational fears for his welfare that haunt me every day. With recent concerns over his new living situation, my anxiety seems to be heightening even as I tell myself I should be used to it by now, that I should live through these events with greater equanimity.

That’s not how it works, though, maybe for any parent, but certainly not for those whose children have disabilities that make them particularly vulnerable in our society.

I’m fortunate that the consequences of my tantrum yesterday were not as grave as those of the father whose rage at his son’s mistreatment landed him in jail, and a morass of legal trouble he’ll be mired in for years.

My only consequence was making a fool of myself to my husband. And he’s seen that many times before.

The communications officer I went to see called me back that afternoon, listened to my fears and offered suggestions for talking to the police department in my son’s new town. She’s sending me information on several monitoring programs for disabled residents that may help Daniel’s situation.

She apologized for the indifference the receptionist had shown me, which already seemed trivial in light of more pertinent concerns. I feel silly that I reacted as I did, even as I recognize that my behavior was born of years of worry for my son.

At least it didn’t land me in a garbage ditch.

This time, anyway.

by Kristen - May 30, 2014

A Good Bad Hair Day

I’d really like to stop caring about my hair. It’s been the bane of my existence for years, rarely turning out the way I want it to except when I have nothing more exciting planned than a trip to the hardware store.

But while I do spend a tedious portion of each day with my blow dryer, I’m no longer bothered if the results aren’t perfect. With age comes wisdom: my hair really won’t change my life, or even a moment of my day.

I wish I could adopt a similar attitude about my son’s hair. Despite of an array of more serious concerns — aggression, bolting, beverage stealing — I still care about appearances. His appearance, anyway.

Daniel’s disability overruled the reticence regarding children instilled in me for years by my mother. In her view, displaying pride in her children was a recipe for losing face, an invitation to all manner of embarrassing failure she’d rather avoid until she “saw how we turned out.” Not once do I recall her praising me to another person.

But autism granted me permission to claim one small advantage in my own child’s favor when the odds were otherwise stacked against him: He is physically attractive.

Were she still alive, my mother would be aghast. But I say it unabashed: My son is beautiful. He has that going for him.

His teachers adored him, cuddled him, and melted at his smile. They loved his hip, laid-back style in the trendy clothes I chose for him. Friends and strangers alike commented on his looks, perhaps able to summon nothing more substantive to say about a child whose eccentric behavior left them bewildered and tongue-tied.

I didn’t mind that their praise was superficial. If Daniel’s looks gave him even the slightest edge as he faced the world, I welcomed that edge. Playing up his physical appearance was one job I could manage successfully as the rest of our world spiraled out of control.

Letting go of that job six years ago was a loss I still experience. We’d come to accept that residential placement would someday be necessary, but didn’t expect his escalating behavior to force that outcome when he was still a teenager, when he was still, in my heart, my little boy.

I didn’t know then how achingly I would miss the tangible care of my son, the proximity to tend to details he’d otherwise neglect, the tender, intimate routines on which we’d built our relationship together.

I miss supervising his shower, scrubbing his back as water splashed my face and clothing, reminding him to keep rinsing until his hair was clean. I miss bundling him in a towel in the steamy bathroom, fussing over his complexion and combing his hair, trimming his nails as he sat fidgeting on the edge of his bed.

I miss washing his favorite pajamas every day so he’d never have to sleep without them, checking that his jeans weren’t too short and his dark T-shirts didn’t fade in the dryer.

I miss his shy, satisfied smile as he’d inspect his reflection in the salon mirror, brushing his fingers across his freshly trimmed hair.

I miss being close at hand, ensuring that my son is not dismissed by a world that sees only autism’s messy side-effects, making sure that he is treasured, and honored, and cared for.

And he is cared for. Well cared for, if not to the standards I once maintained so diligently. His adult family home is staffed by professionals who do their jobs well, taking care of my son as they are hired to do. They seem genuinely fond of Daniel, too. Despite his quirks and alarming behavior, he still charms nearly everyone he knows.

There was just the little problem of his hair.

Months after moving to his new group home Daniel’s hair still had not been trimmed. We offered to find a barber ourselves, but were assured by his home director that he’d take care of it. With so many other concerns vying for attention, it was easy to let a haircut slide.

Luckily for him, Daniel has his father’s hair, a glossy, medium brown, that on a typical 22-year-old would look fashionable curling so long around his neck and across his forehead, à la Josh Groban.

But Daniel isn’t typical. Instead of a studiously careless, tousled look, his hair was just tousled. Disheveled. A mess, really, even as staff tried their best to keep it at bay.

I don’t know why something so trivial came to bother me as it did. We’ve had plenty of more pressing challenges to contend with since his transition from residential school to adult family home.

But maybe that is the answer, right there. He is growing up, every day growing further from my care, from holding him close, tending to his needs on a regular, comforting basis. We’ve been traveling to adulthood for years, but I’m not ready yet to let him go.

Daniel’s hair had finally been cut the last time I visited him. It is a singularly awful haircut, his worst since my own attempts when he was three years old.

But that didn’t matter.

His caregiver couldn’t wait for me to see his new hairstyle, smiling as I cupped his face and stroked his forehead, visible again at last.

She was thrilled when I commented on his sparkling white henley, a welcome change from the worn-out, orange mesh garment that, for reasons known only to Daniel, he’s insisted for months on wearing whenever he knows I’m coming.

Eagerly she described how she’d coaxed him into wearing the new Nikes I’d bought him weeks ago, which he’d thus far refused to even try on.

She was beaming with pride at how handsome my son looked for his mother.

His haircut didn’t make a difference, after all.

But the woman caring for him did.

by Kristen - May 22, 2014

My Own Exclusive Crisis

Photo: Robert Stirrett

I’m sort of a sucker for Dr. Phil. His column in a recent issue of O: the Oprah Magazine was, I’m certain, written just for me:

“One of the greatest limitations we face as human beings is that we look at the world from our own subjective perspective–especially in situations that directly involve us. Anytime there’s something personal at stake, you’ve got a built-in bias, right?”

Right.

When the initial shock of my son’s diagnosis began to ebb, and the profound ramifications of his autism sank in, I became what you might call “a person with a built-in bias.”

That is to say, “Nobody had it as bad as me.”

Yes. I realize how self-centered, arrogant, and small-minded that sounds. I was all those things and worse. I couldn’t see beyond my own anguish and pain to recognize that far greater pain existed anywhere else I might care to look: my own neighborhood, our country, the universe.

But I didn’t look. For a while I simply couldn’t. My son’s life was more important to me than the vast suffering of the world or the political tenor of our country or my neighbor’s mother having breast cancer. Other parents’ problems with their kids paled in comparison to what I was going through with my son.

The whole world became my own, exclusive crisis, and I was stuck there, grieving and angry with my feet dug in. Woe to the fool who dared breach my hell, bearing his own inconsequential concerns.

One morning when Daniel was three I tried attending a meeting of the women’s Bible study I’d been part of for several years. It was held at the church where I’d been baptized and had attended my whole life. Our group met in the church nursery so our children could play while we conversed and discussed whatever literature we’d decided to read. I used to look forward to those meetings every other week, and enjoyed the fellowship of the women, many of whom I’d known for years.

It became more difficult to attend as Daniel got older. He was detached, disinterested in the other children, and prone to abrupt changes of mood. Monitoring his behavior left me distracted and, no doubt, distracting to the rest of the group. Just being with these women with their “normal” lives became stressful, threatening, as I watched their children develop typically as my own child fell deeper into his mysterious, impenetrable world. Where I once felt wholly part of something I now felt isolated, anxious and alone.

Hurrying to escape that morning as Daniel’s behavior escalated, I encountered a man at the church’s front door. Holding it open for me, he acknowledged Daniel’s inarticulate sounds of frustration with a nod of his head.

“You should try it with twins,” the man advised. “That’s what my daughter has to do!” He nodded again, smiled broadly, and gave me a little wink.

“Well,” I began, determined to set this guy straight, “my son has a disorder that makes it pretty — ”

He didn’t even hear me. “Just try it with twins! Give that a try! My daughter really has her hands full!”

Outraged and speechless, I scooped Daniel up and rushed to my car, shaking all the way home, incensed by the ignorant, self-consumed ass who didn’t recognize a real parenting challenge when it stood whining at his feet.

If only I’d had Dr. Phil’s advice back then: “If you can develop the ability to really see through another person’s eyes, you’ll be tapping into an incredibly powerful tool to managing your life.”

If only I’d been capable then of heeding that advice.

Years later I still think of that encounter, and imagine our conversation if I’d been able to leave the cocoon of my frightened self-righteousness for just one moment, and ask him about his grandchildren. I could have indulged his pride, cooed over baby pictures, and taken a back seat to his obvious delight. Or perhaps I’d have learned that he was in fact worried sick, afraid that managing twins was overwhelming his daughter just as mothering Daniel was overwhelming me. We could have had a dialogue, a meaningful if brief exchange that left us both a little stronger, a little more connected, a little less alone in our experience.

I do that easily these days. I enjoy such random encounters tremendously. Thank God I’ve gotten over myself enough to do so.

I try to forgive the woman I used to be, for how I felt and acted back then, when I believed the world had come to an end. Daniel’s autism was not the end of the world. It was not even close to that.

It just felt that way for a while.