Silence

Early this morning, I took my middle son, one of the twins who is Autistic, with me to run some errands.

I did my usual commute to town which is about thirty minutes away.

I went through the drive thru and grabbed an iced coffee, went to our pharmacy for medications and then I grabbed some breakfast.

As I was in the last drive thru for the morning (which was crazy long), I started to ponder to myself…

Wow it’s so quiet in this car.

I thought back from home, to all the places we had been and there was zero conversation.

Just pure silence.

I started going down the rabbit hole of why can’t my son talk to me?

Will I ever hear his voice?

What has he been thinking about the past few hours?

And then the tears came down.

I don’t cry often about the disability itself. Sometimes I’ll cry about the future…but not as often as I used to.

Today hit me hard..like a ton of bricks fell on the car while in that drive thru line.

So I started talking. I rambled about nothing.

That’s when I realized that I was so used to not having a conversation with him..

That I stopped talking.

So, I talked. I told him Momma loves him. I told him about the drive thru line. I asked him what his favorite show on the tablet was. I sang songs to him.

And nothing.

Not a word.

Not a look.

Not an acknowledgment.

So, I reached back to his seat and grabbed his chunky, sweet little foot. And he looked at me…and in that moment I knew…he understood.

We started on our way home and I felt my way back again, still holding his foot as he looked up and then back down at his tablet.

I knew even though we were in silence, as long as his Momma had her hand on him, he knew I was there.

These are the hard days of Autism for a Momma’s heart.

Even though he doesn’t know what the word Momma means yet, he still knows I’m his comfort and his peace..and for that I’ll always be grateful.

Written by, Annie Smith

My name is Annie Smith. I’m married to a wonderful husband who I’ve been together with for eleven years. I’m a stay at home mom to a four year old daughter and three year old twin boys. One son has Cerebral Palsy, a feeding tube and speech apraxia. Our other son has nonverbal autism. We are navigating our life of special needs as a family. You can follow our journey on Facebook at Raising Different Disabilities.

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