Moment to Moment

April is Autism Awareness month; tomorrow World Autism Awareness Day! With that said, I am sure that I will dedicate a lot of my energy on my blog this month about our journey into and through autism. My purpose is to enlighten others with no hidden agenda - straight from the heart. If just one other family, child, or mother can be inspired then I will have met my goal.


However, I would just like to reflect on the concept of having to dedicate a specific day or month to the 'awareness of autism'. I suppose I find this akin to Valentine's Day or Sweetest Day, you know the Hallmark Holidays. As a couple, we have taken the stance that if you are truly IN LOVE you express this daily— moment to moment— in intimate ways that only you and your significant other 'get' ; not on a declared day dictated by another.


I don't need a pre-fab card and tortured roses from my mate to tell me how much he loves me. He does this daily in subtle ways that I will never become numb to. The gentle brush of the hand removing my hair out of my exhausted eyes after after chasing Sahara up the street, the unloading of the water jugs from the back of the jeep – barefoot in the rain at midnight, the unsolicited kiss when the children aren't looking, the consciousness to call to see how my day is going, or the never-ending patience to my never-ending nagging about something (always something).


I have to compare autism to being in love. It isn’t something you go looking for, desire, or fantasize about. When love and autism are created it is cosmic, something happening beyond our earthly comprehension. In a love story, two strangers meet; you become aware of something familiar in their unfamiliar-ness, something comforting in their foreign touch, and something understood in the silence of a moment. It is like you knew each other lifetimes ago, and you suddenly feel at home, but there is still this boundary to be crossed, a journey yet to be embarked.


Moments like these are riddled throughout the day of autism. The hidden memories of familiar-ness in your child's eyes; the squawks that seem to bring comfort only to your ears; and the profound silence that does speak louder than words— Intimate moments that only a mother or family of autism can relate to and truly understand.


With that, we are home and embarking on a journey that we know we will survive and come out stronger, united in moments- intimate to only us. A journey defined by outsider’s as symptoms and labels. A journey of unknown treatments waiting to be found— moment to moment—not just on a declared month or singled out day.


You cannot say, "Today I will become more aware of what my sister, neighbor, co-worker, fellow human being is experiencing and because I acknowledged it… tomorrow, I can resume with MY life." This has to be something that we support each other and our children in daily, not just in a proclaimed Hallmark moment.

You cannot magically bring more awareness and more profound meaning to a family experiencing autism on a dedicated day, than the moments that already subtly occur day to day, hour by hour, and minute by minute in the world of autism.