The Day of Acceptance

When Gracie was first diagnosed I thought my world was going to end. I thought it was a life as I knew it would be over and in many ways life as I knew it WAS over. I couldn't comprehend what the next week would look like much less what next year would look like. To me it was bleek and depressing. I saw my sweet baby who had just been given a life sentence of Autism.

The diagnosis was so big it blocked everything out. There is no cure, Youtube was filled with videos of violent meltdowns, co morbid seizure disorders, and adults who made weird noises and couldn't speak.  Previously my knowledge of Autism was limited to Rain Man and PSAs about the early signs of Autism (which my daughter had none until around her 3rd birthday).

It hurt that my sweet baby girl might be different that she might be *GULP* disabled. In some ways it was like grieving a death, the death of the child I thought I would have. The child that I would read Anne of Green Gables to, the child that would watch movies and have slumber parties with her friends. It stung that my daughter struggled to do things that other children had mastered years ago. I fell into a deep depression and gained 80 pounds, as Gracie's Autism progressed I imagined a horrible future full of the things she would never do. I sobbed when she stopped calling me Mommy, and I wondered if I would ever hear her sweet voice again. 

However there came a point when my greif over her Autism was over shadowing my joy of being her mother. There came a point when I decided that the daughter I have is better than the daughter I had hoped for. I realized that I knew my little girl so well that I would not know her any better if she could speak. She expressed her love in her sparkling blue eyes, her smile and she radiates joy in her countenance.

Autism is not what we planned and it's not a journey I would wish on anyone but it is our life. I finally realized that it's not a horrible life, perhaps different challenges than other people face but it was not the nightmare that I had imagined.

I have no idea if things will ever change, for us change is slow and sometimes not at all but even if my life is the same in 10 years that's okay. Where we are isn't so bad.