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Showing posts from September, 2016

An Autism Pause

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Why a pause? Because I am affected by something else that is greater than the way I feel towards autism. My thoughts are consumed by the greatest loss of my life, the death of my mother.  Autism ties into my relationship with her, but for now, I'll be weaving in and out of it.  For right now, without her, there is no me. In memory of My mom was a funny petite little person wrapped up in your average traditional version of what a Latin mother is supposed to represent.  She loved her family, she liked a clean home, she loved to cook for her family, and she loved to garden. And April Fools. Seriously. Same joke every year. For years. I see her legacy in the flowers and trees she planted. It was her biggest accomplishment to date, so personal and so therapeutic for her. When I see all she has done in her garden, it is hard to believe that she created such beauty with her bare hands. Pictures can never do it justice. It is a sight to behold. Many times when we spo...

Happy 6th Birthday Chloe!

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Today we celebrate Chloe's 6th birthday. When I think of all she has accomplished since her autism diagnosis, I am astounded. Chloe, age 6 When she was diagnosed in 2012, I knew it was coming. She shared a lot of the same behaviors Daniel exhibited at that age, so I wasn't surprised at all.  For Chloe, I was more in the know of how to parent a child on the spectrum since I was already an autism parent to Daniel.  And although the diagnosis was not a surprise, it still saddened me to be raising another child with a disability. It pretty much sucked.  What I want for them is that idyllic life where they can work for their opportunities and actually have a shot at a fruitful life. Go to college, get married, travel. A someday that my son will say to me, "Hey mom," or, "I love you mom." A day when someone will stop claiming to know all about autism because..., "I've seen a show," or "What's Daniel's specialty?" "He ...

Life Without Grandma

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How do you break the news to your children on the autism spectrum that their Grandma has gone to her glory? Daniel When my mother died this past May, I had that question in my mind the entire time. Would Daniel truly understand that his grandmother had died? Would my mother herself visit him in his dreams and tell him she's moved on? Daniel has always been very attached to me. But during his year as a 2nd grader this past school year, he was becoming more independent from me. For us that meant that I could actually leave the house alone without him having a meltdown. I could visit his school without him crying and pulling on me to leave with me once he saw me. But on that horrible day, when he came home from school, he knew something was up with me. Kids like Daniel always get a bad rap. Since he is nonverbal, a lot of people cannot measure how much he truly understands despite my telling them that he understands a lot more than people may think. But what the hell do I...

Month 4 (A Motherless Daughter)

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"Mourning is the constant reawakening that things are now different."                                  -Stephanie Ericsson Today, I've been dealing with my mother's death for the past four months. It still seems to me like a bad dream from which I cannot wake. Grieving is so different for everyone. When I first moved down here to Florida, to her home, I didn't feel her anywhere. I would lie on my bed, my eyes closed, my body still, waiting for her to come to me in some way. I would cook in her kitchen and wait for a glimpse of her and I got nothing.  Then I took the step to see her in her final resting place. I told myself that I'd never be ready to see her there but one day, when the pain got to be too much, I needed to see my mother. I think that was the hardest thing I'd ever done. It was so jarring to see her name in that place and to know, she's in there. She's actually in there. It's no...