{"id":6180,"date":"2015-09-14T13:56:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T17:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=6180"},"modified":"2015-09-14T13:56:45","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T17:56:45","slug":"triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/09\/triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"Triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Summer<\/a><\/p>\n

He nearly stumbled over the stroller, the elderly man with the kind eyes who apologized, then bent down to speak to my son Justin. \u201cHi there buddy!\u201d he said exuberantly, then put up his hand for a high-five.<\/p>\n

Justin simply stared at the proffered hand, then glanced away.<\/p>\n

The man looked up at me quizzically, and I responded with \u201che doesn\u2019t talk- he has severe autism,\u201d and as I watched, his face crumpled in dismay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so sorry\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a tragedy. God bless you.\u201d He straightened up and walked away.<\/p>\n

And as I watched him stroll to the canned goods section the words flowed into my mind, if not my mouth- \u201cMy son is not a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

My son is not a tragedy.<\/p>\n

Are there aspects of my child\u2019s disability that I find tragic? Yes, there are. I will always lament the fact that he will be on this earth for half his life without his parents to care for him, nurture him, love him. Even though I am aware that he may have competent caregivers for those decades I still find it heartbreaking to think he might miss us, might wonder why we no longer visit him. I worry his caretakers might miss medical issues, might not feed him well.<\/p>\n

I worry they won\u2019t love him.<\/p>\n

I am confident these concerns will follow me to my grave.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s where the tragic element of my son\u2019s autism ends for me.<\/p>\n

I no longer regret the more traditional trappings of the life I\u2019d envisioned for my son. When I carried him in my womb I took for granted his life would include college, career, friends, and a partner who would cherish him. There are days when I still ache for those things for my son. But over the past few years I\u2019ve begun to see that needing those traditional milestones to achieve happiness is my disability, not his.<\/p>\n

For after many many years of struggling my son is mostly joyful, ebullient. My child, who generally wants to be home and playing with his DVD player doesn\u2019t need his mother\u2019s dreams to be content, fulfilled. He is smart. He reads. He rides horses passionately. He loves his little brother. He adores popcorn and movies and everyone at his school. He shares his joy of the world in ever-abundant kisses and hugs. He embodies kindness.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s made his own life, contoured it to his own wishes.<\/p>\n

And if I could go back to that grocery store and conquer the lump in my throat, I\u2019d tell that well-meaning but mislead man just this.<\/p>\n

My son, my beautiful boy, is not a tragedy.<\/p>\n

He is a triumph.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com\/
\nFollow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist\u2003\u2003<\/i><\/p>\n

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He nearly stumbled over the stroller, the elderly man with the kind eyes who apologized, then bent down to speak to my son Justin. \u201cHi there buddy!\u201d he said exuberantly, then put up his hand for a high-five. Justin simply stared at the proffered hand, then glanced away. The man looked up at me quizzically, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294],"class_list":["post-6180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sgt2Ft-triumph","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}