Our blue light

As I angled the camera to get a good photo of the blue candle, I saw that the reflected flame is more beautiful than the original. With all the talk of Holland* and dashed hopes that some of us face with an autism diagnosis, with all the planning and worrying still to come, with all the explaining and misunderstanding and misinformation in the world out there, with all the emotional collateral damage yet to assess, there is still a light that shines in the darkness of what my life would have been without him (and his siblings, who show such tremendous grace and humor under pressure). As much as ever, I embrace what I wrote in 1998 when I tried to describe what turned out to be autism: this boy is closer to heaven and hell than I will ever be on this earth. His unfiltered (or sometimes, overfiltered…) take on the world reveals the sublime and the absurd and gives me the courage to keep fighting demons that, without my children, surely would have overtaken me long ago.

But I know the roles can reverse. There are many who justifiably curse the cloak of darkness that autism drapes over their child. It’s impossible to be grateful for every moment; there are millions of them that are best forgotten. But it’s in those dark moments that we are most grateful for the light when it does return (if we can just remember where we hid the matches).

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*The Welcome to Holland essay inspires many people when they first face a disability diagnosis, but Susan Rzucidlo’s Welcome to Beirut has always been my personal favorite for families on the spectrum.