autism is a journey: Inspiration

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Inspiration

My dad e-mailed me a version of this story. The subject line: "When God says, 'when' ". I couldn't get the version he sent to post, so here's another one from you-tube...it gives me goosebumps:

I am inspired and full of hope when I see the triumph of Jason McElwain. It encourages me to press forward and continue to encourage and involve Jackson in activities his peers participate in. Sometimes, I need to remind myself of the importance of a nudge in the right direction--Jackson loves being part of a 'team': t-ball, soccer, and now boyscouts. Who knows, maybe he will take up basketball...

"The sky is the limit...never give up" Jason McElwain

1 comment:

tylerbritney said...: Thanks for this link you emailed me. I am always inspired when I see Jason doing what he loves. I only hope one day we can get Tyler involved in some activities that he enjoys. We will never know unless we try. I'm glad Jax is included in such great things in your community and I know he makes you proud no matter what!; January 31, 2008 at 5:33 PM

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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....