Look At All The Friends!

Those of you that have followed my Blog know that my 7 year old son (MiniWarrior) is Autistic.

When you first meet him you wouldn't guess that he was anything other then a very sweet, friendly, talk-ative little boy. He's bright, he's curious and he will pepper any unsuspecting victim with as many questions as he can possibly fit in between the time it takes you to realize the questions "aren't going to end" and the 'survival flight syndrome' kicks in.

You would not guess the turmoil that he lives with every day inside his head. Every sound, every smell, every tiny detail around him, his brain picks up and stores. There are no filters. That's the hard part. No filters. It's also the wonderful part. No filters. He sees everything in absolute clarity. He embraces every person he meets with the warmth us "filtered" people reserve for family and close friends.

When he was 4, I took him to a Park to go swimming and play in the sand for a bit. It was a scorching hot, peel the flesh from your bones day. The parking lot was crowded with cars. By the time we shuffled our way to the park entrance I was sweating, irritated and questioning the sanity of spending the day par-broiling pressed in between the mass of strangers. However, MiniWarrior was skipping along beside me, excited about spending the day at the lake, so I paid our entrance fee and resigned myself to staking out a spot among the masses and sweating through the mandatory beach blanket guard detail.

We jostled our way through the park entrance line and paused at the creek bridge to survey the terrain for our family blanket nesting spot. It was going to be a challenge. Every square foot of grass and sand was covered with the white flesh of humanity.

"God, look at all the people!" I groaned to myself.

MiniWarrior hopped up and down beside me tugging on my arm.

"Mom! Mom!"

I blinked sweat from my eyes and looked down at him wiggling happily beside me.

"What?"

"Look at all the friends!" He exclaimed in happy awe.

I paused and looked into his eyes glowing with happiness and felt something old and rusty shift inside me.

What a treasure he is. Every day of the 7 years I have spent with this child has opened my filtered world to the stark beauty surrounding us.

Experts call Autism a handicap. Sometimes I wonder who the "handicapped" people really are.