Autism Walk

So today I am talking fundraisers. The race we are all running to procure the desperately missing funds to bring something to the strange world of Autism...... Research. Cures. Causes. Reasons. This is a sad fight I see so many women struggling with. All the talk. Too much talk. I could blame vaccines and harbor that guilt and hate my clinic, or I could doubt my DNA or wonder if its because I didn't eat organic food, maybe it was the water, or air I breathe, maybe I did something I should not have done! But that isn't going to give me a typical 7 year old boy who sulks when I say no more Spongebob, or eat your broccoli, or no you can't have a go cart, or walk to the park alone.....Instead I say, no you can't stack all those things to climb up and eat the entire box of pop tarts, you can't keep making those noises at 5 a.m, you can't try to run out the front door into the street, you can't have a 7th bath today, and you can't take the cookies out of the box in the store...Chandler is my normal. I have come to enjoy some of our little routines. I laugh when he teases me and says its bedtime at 2 in the afternoon. Do I want to know WHY. Yes, of course I do. Do I wish he didn't have to struggle to speak, and wonder about things he doesn't understand, and I didn't have to hurt and wonder about his future? A resounding YES. But if I keep asking why without doing anything about it, it will drive me insane knowing I may never get the answers. So we will continue to fundraise for education, for awareness, so that every new person I ask for a donation gets a little taste of autism. Gets one little piece of information. I will keep talking about it until I have no voice left, because I AM my son's voice. I will reach out to everyone I meet. Do I really care if the money goes to treatments, research, or cures? Not so much. I do it for the awareness. I do it for me. But most of all, when I am holding my baby's hand and walking with him alongside the other moms who look and me and we share the smile of understanding, it doesn't matter. For a few minutes we get to be all together- walking in support of one another. For one morning, we KNOW we will feel the support, the joy, the hope, -without saying a single word.