I don't really know where to begin. The only way to start this is to say that I love my son with every ounce of my being. And as a man, I am not ashamed to talk like this. I haven't had my son diagnosed yet, but we have an appointment with the pediatrician in a few weeks. I made it specifically to address the issue of my son being under the autism spectrum.
I knew it may have been a possibility just before his second birthday, and by the time he was two, we had begun early intervention with a local area education agency. Autism Spectrum is so confusing. My son does a great job with naming things, but when it comes to asking for things or expressing needs, he cannot. He expresses limited emotion (mainly with me and my wife and a few other close relatives) and doesn't seem to want to play with other children. When many children are around, his fists seem to clench and he withdraws.
When the early intervention specialist first mentioned the word "autism", I was stunned. I just sat there and cried and thought, "How could my perfect little boy have something wrong with him?" I have started to accept the possibilities more and more, but I still have my periods of grief. And when this does happen, it's as if my son knows it because he does something so undeniably wonderful that he takes my mind away from it, if only for a few minutes. A good example was when I was having a difficult day with him. I looked at him and said, "I love you, and you're the best little boy a daddy could ask for." He looked up, came over to me, and snuggled into my chest, something he had rarely done up to that point. Things like this make me realize that children are the most precious gift we get, in whatever form they come.
I knew it may have been a possibility just before his second birthday, and by the time he was two, we had begun early intervention with a local area education agency. Autism Spectrum is so confusing. My son does a great job with naming things, but when it comes to asking for things or expressing needs, he cannot. He expresses limited emotion (mainly with me and my wife and a few other close relatives) and doesn't seem to want to play with other children. When many children are around, his fists seem to clench and he withdraws.
When the early intervention specialist first mentioned the word "autism", I was stunned. I just sat there and cried and thought, "How could my perfect little boy have something wrong with him?" I have started to accept the possibilities more and more, but I still have my periods of grief. And when this does happen, it's as if my son knows it because he does something so undeniably wonderful that he takes my mind away from it, if only for a few minutes. A good example was when I was having a difficult day with him. I looked at him and said, "I love you, and you're the best little boy a daddy could ask for." He looked up, came over to me, and snuggled into my chest, something he had rarely done up to that point. Things like this make me realize that children are the most precious gift we get, in whatever form they come.
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I\'m going to share this with you:
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often 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 guide books 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 guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have 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....and 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.\"
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very 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.