‘Will His Autism Go Away?’
That’s what the woman asked me. In front of 200 people.
Honestly, you could have heard a pin drop as the heads in the room snapped from her to me.
And I practiced the pause.
I was presenting at a conference down south to a large group of folks who work with kids and adults like my son Cooper.
The presentation I had just finished was called Finding Joy in the Secret World of Autism.
For 90 minutes I shared my story. And my boy.
I spoke about my pregnancy and his birth. How his skin was the softest thing I had ever felt as I held him for the first time in my arms.
I shared about the agony of living in the in between space. Googling. Worry. Praying. Diagnosing. His differences from his peers screaming at me. Isolating us.
And then autism.
I described the early years. Then the middle ones.
Behaviors.
But mostly about my transformation and my journey to acceptance as a mom to a little boy.
Cooper is exactly who he is supposed to be. And I, me, you, we need to meet him where he is at.
The audience cried. They laughed. They fell in love with my yellow haired boy.
‘Will his autism go away?’
When I looked at her, I saw the hope in her eyes. Her sweet smile.
‘He can get better, right?’
She wanted a happy ending to my story. I could see it in her eyes.
And it dawned on me in that moment, that some people, mostly the ones adjacent to our world, can’t imagine this being a happy life.
I smiled and gently told her that no, his autism isn’t going away.
A diagnosis doesn’t equal a sad ending.
