Growth and Autism

Every once in a while, I look at my tiny human, a piece of my heart that walks this earth, and I think ‘you’re growing’.

It usually hits me in the morning. That divine window of time before sleep has fully left her eyes, energy of the day yet to take hold.

There’s something captivating about that sudden realization that change happens faster than you can blink.

Obviously, she’s going to grow. It’s what kids do. But logic is irrelevant when you’ve waded through six years of global development delays and autism.

I spent so long begging for progress. Begging for development. Begging for growth…

But I’m learning. I can beg all I want, but the path is here in front of me; those sleep filled eyes, stifled yawns and quiet moments of the morning tell me so. And it brings intense emotion.

In only a few short years, she’s fought so hard.

There is so much physically and emotionally that doesn’t come naturally to her. So many hurdles that she’s soared above.

And then it hits me. That there is so much growth. Just not always in the way a mother expects it.

As time creeps by, new challenges are posed. That’s how it goes with autism.

But a sense of acceptance is here in the glow of the morning light.

Simply knowing her path is not typical makes what’s to come tolerable. Knowing that we have each other, whatever we may encounter. Knowing that growth will come. On her own timescale.

In her own way.