Watch the Other Kids
If you want to know how to treat someone with autism, watch the other kids.
The ones who leave movies early.
The ones who feel the stares upon their backs as though the very sun is upon them.
Who stand on the sidelines as marriages fracture, rupture, repair, heal.
The kids who look toward the stands during baseball games, or to folding chairs from the stage, only to see empty spots.
If you want to know all the ways the texture of family shifts around a diagnosis, watch the other kids. Watch how they make space for the vulnerable one among them. Watch how they ebb and flow, like water.
Autism.
A phenomenon without borders, without reverence.
On other words, it doesn’t care about older brothers who will one day take care of younger brothers.
Watch the other kids.
The ones who peer inside the unexpected triumphs and smile.
Who slipped their shoulders beneath the weight of forever.
Forever brother.
Forever sister.
Yet they carry their responsibility to lightly, you would hardly know it’s there at all.
We always say the world is not made for people of the spectrum bell curve.
Perhaps it’s not made for the brothers or sisters either—the songbirds who alter their own music again and again, without any choice in the matter.
Autism is not a gift.
No one hopes their baby is born with it.
No one hopes their son or daughter will struggle with communication, social cues, or isolation.
No one hopes they will one day stand in a courtroom and appeal for guardianship.
To say autism a gift is a disservice to the mothers and fathers who advocate tirelessly for their child.
Who wake up in the middle of the night panicking about what will happen when they die.
To say autism is a gift is an injustice to the siblings who grow up alongside this diagnosis.
Who know that one day, they will assist in caregiving.
If you want to understand the marginalized, the discriminated, the voiceless.
Watch the other kids.
The ones who know that autism speaks a listener’s language. How quickly they became fluent.
Watch how they root for the tender one among them. How they encircle him like petals around the heart of a flower.
They know a single truth many fail to understand.
They know.
A life lived differently is not a life less lived.
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Beautifully said ❤️
heart breakingly beautiful....