Every parent knows that raising a child takes dedication, patience, and lots of love. It's difficult, sometimes, to shower your little one with love when they're kicking and screaming and crying for what seems like forever.
Now imagine what the life of a parent of a child with autism must be like. These parents must address certain issues others don't usually need to face.
One such mom is Carrie Cariello. She writes often about her son Jack, who has autism. Every day is a new adventure, a new lesson for the mom.
Most recently, she and her husband had to make a tough decision: They pulled Jack out of the public school system against his wishes, though it would be for his benefit. They planned on sending him to a new, special school, where he would receive the care and attention he needs. Carrie knows that the biggest pain for her son is his want to be normal, and knowing that he is not.
In a blog post, she shares the moment she told Jack the news, and his reaction. Following the interaction, she makes a request to all the other kids who will be returning to public school: to not forget the boy who wanted to be just like them.
Now scroll down to read this mom's touching words and request, and take a peek into the life of a parent of a child with autism…
It is time to accept what is before her and look at what’s ahead of her and be willing to consider a different boy and a different school and a different life.
See, when it comes to autism, there are no do-overs. There are no second chances. This mom has just one opportunity to be his mom and she has to make the very best right decision for him, even when the best right decision is so terribly hard that it makes her heart fold over on top of itself.
She told him last Wednesday about his new school. They were driving home after the last day of his summer program, and he was talking on and on about his teacher for seventh grade and whether or not they should look for blue pencils.
Jack, buddy. Listen to me. You aren’t going back to public school.
They didn’t plan to tell him this way, the mom and the dad. They planned to sit him down at the long kitchen table and have a discussion so they could explain the reasons and outline the plan.
But if she had to hear him talk about seventh grade one more minute she was afraid she might go crazy. It felt too much like a big, ugly, snake-y lie.
Sitting in the cool, dark garage, it was as if everything around them—the dad’s old work boots and the broom on the hook and the soccer ball in the corner—took a collective breath together and waited.
Just let me be normal please let me go I will be good please please please I have to go I need a new start I will do it right I will be good like Joey I have to go like Joey.
While he sobbed and screamed, she thought about all the things she wanted him to know.
She wanted him to know this is not because he was bad or because he did something wrong. She knows how hard everyone around him worked–his teachers and his aide and his case manager. She knows how hard he worked.
But at some point, autism made his corners sharper and more rigid, and it became harder and harder to wedge him into the round, smooth games at recess.
She wanted to tell him how many nights she and his dad spent talking in the darkness—each playing something called devil’s advocate and tossing around options and trying to figure out a way to keep their precious son marching in his duckling line.
[…] she knows it is time—it is time to make his world small and cozy and warm. It’s time for him to relax in his cocoon, and just be the most perfect-est caterpillar ever. In his new school, he can blossom into a butterfly whenever he’s ready. […]
As you sit in your new classrooms and listen to your new teachers, I only hope one thing.
Don’t forget him.
Please, don’t forget this boy who tried so hard and who will never give up and who wants to be just like you.
Please SHARE to let this brave mother know that you support her, and that you’re wishing Jack luck in the new school year!
