I dedicate this to every loving mother and father raising a child with special needs.

Parenting a normal child is daunting. Parenting a special needs child escalates daunting to level that can be excruciating at times.  And it puts the parents and child on a metaphorical island emotionally and socially.  Take a look at your community and search for support groups specifically focused on special needs families.  There are not a lot of options.

Many churches have special needs classes for the child on Sunday but there are still precious few choices to socially integrate a special needs child or their parents. And the emotional roller coaster is exhausting.  Heartache, grief and fear are our frequent companions. 

We grapple with terrible questions.  What caused this? Why us? Is there anything we could have done differently to prevent this? Inevitably guilt creeps into our thoughts and we seek answers to the most terrible question – Did we do something to cause this?

Your extended family can provide comfort, if that is what they choose, but they can also choose to make your heartache, fear, grief and guilt worse. Rather than seek to understand your emotions they attempt to inform you and influence you with their answers to all of the previously mentioned questions.  Where is kindness and compassion in that?

Tylenol is not the root cause of my son’s autism.  Thirty five years of medical testing and clinical observation still cannot provide us with a singular, definitive cause.  And at this point the answers are not as nearly as important or urgent as they were. Now our focus is on how we create the best life for the child and the parents. We are a work in progress and we are blessed.  Praise be to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.