autism is a journey: Camping Out

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Camping Out

So I bought the kids a tent...Jackson loves it!
Currently, it's in the back of the little toyota pick-up. Jax was trying to get it into the truck bed while dh was mowing the lawn...so dh put it into the truck for him. He's in there right now...I wonder what it is about that small space? Honestly, I think he'd love sleeping in it; but neither of us could stand to sleep under the stars on the ground with him.

Sometimes, the simplest little things bring joy to Jackson. Wouldn't life be great if all of us found joy that easily?

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from "Metaphor-the puzzle piece symbol"

Ever had one of those "ah-ha" moments? I'm driving down the road today, pondering Jackson's recent successes--boyscout camp and football camp. It occurred to me that each experience gave me back a piece of Jackson. [I'm not doing a very good job explaining this...] When we learned about Jackson's diagnosis, so many dreams were snuffed out. We no longer thought about our son becoming an athlete, a scholar, or even a friend. We thought in much smaller terms:"how many words does he have?""did he learn a new sign""is he reaching out to us?""that's playing pretend, isn't it?"Our perspective as parents permanently changed. It's like we had this complete picture of our child and autism fractured it--into a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.Each day little by little, we get pieces of the puzzle back. It'll never be complete, never the same as we expected, but there will be parts that will come together.Like when he participated in the school music program, enjoyed boyscout camp, rode the roller coaster and attended football camp. Bit by bit, we get pieces of what we expected back.Of course, the flip side of this is all the joys we gain from Jackson that we never expected in spite of the autism, but that's another post my friends....