Love Lifted Me

On the heals of the new Autism Speaks PSA, I found myself pondering what autism had done to my life. Is it an insidious creature that stole my world my marriage and my son, like depicted in the video? My answer was most assuredly no. When Cotton was first diagnosed it was the worst time of my life, I have trouble even thinking about that point, it is such a dark place. I think at that time I could have totally related to the "monster" coming for my child. In the beginning that is how I saw autism, something that kept my son from being who he really was. The truth is without autism, my son would be a different person all together.

One of the greatest lessons that autism has taught me, is to love people as they are exactly at that moment. Not to dwell on what you want them to be, or how they might be, but to love them perfectly and purely. That pure love (not wanting that person to change) ironically is what truly changes people. Most of all it changed me. I have been a proud and judgmental person for most of my life. People with special needs scared me, and even I am ashamed to say offended me. Now I see people with special needs as the most beautiful people on the planet, with more to teach than a thousand Phds could ever imagine. I know they work harder and longer than I ever could, and that they show the people who love them what that word really means. My marriage is stronger because of autism. Any pretense we had going into our marriage was stripped clean, we were exposed and raw, luckily we held on to each other used each other for our strengths and carried each other when it got too hard. It is true that our finances were rocked a bit at first, but we soon became experts on getting funding for the therapies that Cotton needed. We are on this earth to learn and grow, and that can be excruciatingly painful. Autism didn't steal my child, it is for better or worse part of my child, and I love every inch.