L is for LOVE

I have been stuck on L for awhile now....nothing comes to mind. I was afraid this would happen. I decided to quit trying so hard to think about it and just write something. LOVE comes to mind when I think about autism. I believe that Ivy's sole purpose in life was to teach me about LOVE. I mean I have always known about LOVE in a sense and even experienced it once or twice along the way, but this kind of LOVE I am talking about is the LOVE only learned from a lesson in life kind of LOVE.

When a mother holds her child for the first time, you feel so many different emotions. It is probably the single most magnificent moment in time over all other moments in time. You have created a life and most mother's know without a doubt that their purpose in life was to be this tiny little things mother. Forget everything else you had planned up to that point, because that has all changed now. Now it's about this tiny little creature lying in your arms. Now is when you experience the "Ah-ha" moment. You are now forever in love with this little person you created.

When you hold this beautiful baby and you are lovingly staring at them, you have dreams and hopes for them. You wonder about their life and what will they be when they grow up, etc, etc. When something like autism comes along, all those hopes and dreams are suddenly shattered by words such as, "no cure", "lifelong disability", "institutionalized" and "nothing we can do". It's really a devastating blow I can tell you first hand. All of sudden you are hit with the hard,cold reality that this beautiful child that you created and love is not perfect. Only that is the facade. Because once you swallow the diagnosis and you decided how you are going to handle things, you realize how silly you were for thinking your child is not perfect. In fact, my daughter is still perfect....she just has autism too.

So, when you have a child that has some issues, you go into what I refer to as "mad primal mommy mode". You have such a primal instinct to protect. It's called survival mode to some I guess. You whip out your ferocious mommy instinct's and you get busy. You could just lie down and give up and feel really sorry for yourself too I guess, but what is that going to solve? Not crapola I can tell you. So, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and you get busy. You do it for YOU, you do it for your child, you do it out of LOVE. You do it because it's the right thing to do. It's not an easy road and there are lots of curve's and bumps and bridges washed out and detours along the way, but you will make it. You will, I promise. And along the way, you will learn what LOVE is really about.