It begins

When I gave birth to my son, my mother commented that she had never seen two people so much in love. We never took our eyes off of each other. In his eyes I saw every promise and potential I had ever prayed for in a child. He has never disappointed me.

Cobain has always been a happy child. Every baby picture has him smiling. He is loving, funny, beautiful and amazing. Now as time went on I was called overbearing, that I spoiled him and was generally smothering :). I didn't mind because I feel that you can never love a child too much and if you give them a foundation built on love, trust and respect, you can't go wrong. It never occurred to me that something outside of ourselves could change that.

I have many friends whose children were born with various illnesses or are differently abled. Those children have been a light in my life for many years. But with all of them, we either knew before they were born or right after birth that there was an issue. We had time to prepare. We never knew life before because it just was, regardless of whatever beautiful struggle that was brought before these little angels, it had presented itself and we had prepared for it in one way or another.

I think that is what makes autism so hard. You don't see it coming. You have a couple of years of having a child under your belt and then the floor drops out from under you.