autism is a journey: Holiday Lights

Friday, November 28, 2008

Holiday Lights

Last night we went down town to see the cool Santa Light display that is hung on the bank building every year. We also went through the Fantasy of Lights display. Jackson had such a wonderful time...it's so cool when he gets excited about a "tradition". Driving through the Fantasy of Lights he did his usual play by play--"Look at the Pizza man" "Look at the Mastodon" "Here comes Woody" It's nice for us to have those words and know that he's enjoying himself...

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Martina Jolie said...: It has become impossible to give up the enterprise of disarmament without abandoning the whole great adventure of building up a collective peace system. – Arthur Henderson Flights to Johannesburg
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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....