Ugly Cry

You know.  America’s Got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent…..they’re kinda cheesy shows.  I don’t know what exactly it is but I think Hasslhoff has something to do with it.

I’ll never ever forget seeing him in the lobby of the Best Western in his wifebeater and droopy-drawer sweat pants.  Yikes.

Anyway.  You must now watch this quick video on Youtube.  Embedding it is disabled and, frankly, I’ve not figured out how to embed stuff on my new site ANYWAY.

WATCH IT NOW

I dunno about you, but that video made me ugly cry, badly.  Ikey kept saying “Mommy, you’re happy?”.  He doesn’t understand happy crying yet…

When a mother is told her son has autism, her world shatters, the future seems grim, hope is lost.  She somehow carries on, desperate to help her child, fighting odds.  She hears over and over and over what her child cannot do, what he’s doing wrong, what he needs to work on.

The school system so obviously failed these two.  She’s homeschooling him.  Such hard work for someone who, I’m sure, was told that there is hardly any hope.

Now this mother stands there, her son standing in front of millions of people.  Some of these people might have made fun of him.  They might have called him “weirdo” or “gay”.  She stands there as ALL of these people see the light and are now saying a resounding “YES” to her son!!  He’s accepted, tonight is is ABLE.  Tonight the world is accepting him just as he is, autism and all.  Not because of his disability but because he can ACTUALLY DANCE, really well and in an incredibly unique way.

The world says “yes” to her son.

I wouldn’t say people with autism are “disabled”.  I would call them “alternatively able”.  There’s SO MUCH BEAUTY in autism that I want to scream it from the rooftops!!

Our children with autism, no matter their “functioning level” (I hate that term), they are hard, they are different, they are not always accepted.  If all we did was focus on the bad, then nothing good would come of it.  There are gigantic nuggets of beauty amongst the rubble.  They shine brighter and brighter the more we focus on them.  The more we realize that these people are NOT going to fit in to the regular box, the more their beauty shines through.

I truly believe your child has something beautiful to show you, even if right now they’re sitting on the other side of the room, rocking or spinning, lost in their own world or they’re in the second hour of a tantrum.  If they’re intently reciting the entire alphabet for the 100th time today, if they’ve just talked your ear off for an hour about their #1 interest.  There’s SO MUCH BEAUTY there.

Let’s choose to see it, in those big eyes that seem to see your soul.  In the way they see something amazing in an object that shines or spins or is fuzzy or rough.  They have just as much potential for something amazing as James does.  We just need to find it, encourage it, enjoy it and choose to focus on the positive.

I love our children.  Bless you all.