Open letter to my son about Autism Awareness

This letter was originally published on my Examiner Column " A letter to Noah for Autism Awareness Month."  April 2011

Dear Noah,

Today is the beginning of Autism awareness month and you are seven years old. You may not know what autism means but you are aware of what it is.

You are painfully aware of how loud talking and lots of people talking make your ears hurt.

You are aware of how the lights can be so bright they make your eyes hurt

You do not like food that is slimy, or has strong smells, or has “too much going on”

You are aware of how your body feels very slow and is not cooperating with you, making you feel tired or sick.  You know the feeling of how your body feels far away from you even though you are in it.

You are aware of how hard it is to pedal a bike, swing on a swing and get dressed.

You are one hard working kid and have to work harder than other kids.

You are aware of how angry and scared you feel way too often.

You are aware of the feeling of embarrassment but do not understand what the word means.

You may not be aware and understand how other people feel, but you are aware of it when they tell you making you feel bad.

You do not understand why people say things that they do not mean like it is raining cats and dogs when there are no cats or dogs falling from the sky.

You love numbers, computers, and taking things apart and are so good at those things if you work hard you will be an engineer, meteorologist or inventor one day when you are big.

Part of your brain works much faster and better than the other half making you very smart at math, science, computers and reading, just like Albert Einstein.

You have been reading since before you were three years old, which is very fast and very smart.

You are a very funny boy and even though people can make you feel uncomfortable you are very friendly to them.

You can be very far away and we miss you when you don’t feel well.

Even though you can not say you love Daddy and I and we don’t get to do a lot of things together we know that you love us.

And when you were very little and didn’t really talk to me, I knew you knew that Mommy loves you more than anything in the whole world because you would say “Whole World!” after every time I said it.

I hope by the time you understand what Autism is you will understand that everyone has challenges in their lives, and challenges give us a chance to be heroes.

Thank you for being my hero and letting me be yours

Love Mommy

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