Meet Marky:
- Using the word “fun” is no good
- “Celebrating” can only be with family
- Staying home is his preferred place
- Gifts are not “things”
- He does not know how to lie
- He does 500 piece puzzles in one sitting
- He eats raw broccoli every day
- He can watch infomercials all day long
- He texts with full sentences and perfect punctuation, but gives one word answers
- He asks when he will get his driver’s license, yet doesn’t realize that he won’t
- He says please and thank you all the time
- He didn’t like crowds and used sanitizer way before covid
- His diet consists of maybe 15 foods
These are just a few of our “Marky-isms”, to know him is to love him, to know him, makes you the lucky one.
I’m a mom of 3 and my youngest has autism. I have no rule book on parenting and this time around, it has been a whole new path.
Day by day, we do our best and some days are worse than others.
I am no different than any other special needs parent. We all know that our path will be full of dead ends, but that we will do all we can to break through for entry, when it comes to our children.
Autism, for me, has been the thing that has opened my eyes to see the world through his.
Some days it is beautiful.
Some days there is hope and laughter.
We always believe in him.
We always have HOPE, even though the future is so unknown.
He teaches me and those around him about the simplicity and beauty all around us.
As we approach his 18th, the mountain we are climbing, has a few more more hills , they may only be for me as I am not certain he is experiencing them. Maybe one day he will tell me !
I wonder, if more people had this exposure, if our world would be a better place. I wonder if we all had a little bit more of Marky, if there would be more options for our kids. If more of us lived with this honesty and sincerity, if we all had his spirit to push forward- imagine the world we could live in.
I imagine it every day.