Are you ready to do some time traveling with me?

I wrote the following post below in 2011. My “learning of the language” that was initially brought about due to my son’s ASD turned out to be the stepping stone to new perceptions about love and our expected expressions of it, providing me vision through an unexplored lens that turned my former understandings upside-down and sideways.

As my son approaches his 27th birthday this fall, this was a timely reminder to me that though I have traveled far, my work is far from finished, as learning the language of neurodiversity is akin to falling down a rabbit hole that just keeps going.

Fall, live, learn. Fall, live, learn. Fall, live, learn.

We land every so often just long enough to utilize what we’ve learned into an understanding that lights the way to our next breakthrough.

Sometimes it’s important to stop for a moment and acknowledge how far we’ve come to fuel us for the miles we’ve yet to go.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE written by LA Holmberg 7-14-2011

I arrived home late last night to find this beautiful flower arrangement waiting for me on the dining room table. Having just spent the evening with my sisters and my niece for movie night and coffee out (Larry Crowne, which I highly recommend if you’re looking for an amusing and thoughtful movie to see) and having laughed to the point of almost throwing up with tears flowing out of our eyes and an inability to breathe (so few things feel as good in life as laughing so hard you believe you may split open, do they?) on our drive home over anecdotes much too inappropriate to list here, these flowers were the perfect surprise from my son to cap off a great night.

When my son received his diagnosis of autism as a toddler, I knew next to nothing about the condition, but I figured any chance of normalcy for my family had been thrown out the window. This, to me at that time, was incomprehensible. I had a plan for my life dammit and this was not it.  I grieved and cried and cried some more. One night while I was curled up in a ball crying in my closet (I find comfort in small, hidden places where I can curl up unnoticed) a voice said to me, clear as day, “It’s all going to be alright. You’re not going to do it alone and it’s not going to happen overnight, but it’s all going to be alright. He’s going to be just fine.”  I knew the voice was not mine and having been blessed with enough otherworldly experiences to know that there is much more to the underpinnings of our lives than what our brains are humanly equipped to understand, I immediately brightened. He was going to be alright. It was all going to be okay. I clung to these words then, as I continue to now. I stopped crying, uncurled myself and got out of the closet. My son was going to be cured and it was time we got to work on it.

And work is what he has done. For nearly 12 years he has worked tirelessly. He had 40hr. weekly therapies, medical treatments, alternative treatments, dietary intervention, testing, observing, etc… and yada yada yada. He started school at 4 yrs old in a special class which helped prepare him to start the next school year in standard kindergarten, with the class of 2016, where he has remained ever since. He is an honor student and runs cross country and track and it is not without the help and guidance of the many angels here on earth that these achievements have been accomplished. But even with all that there is, all that had been, I was still waiting for the “cure”.

Todd Drezner is a wonderful writer whose son has autism and his recent article gave me pause. He writes about our need to “learn the language” of people with autism and assume they act with reason and intent, even though some of their behaviors are not familiar to us because we don’t consider them the “norm”. I will go one step further to say that in learning this of my son, I am learning to extend this same courtesy in how I view the language of ALL others, that of both the spoken and more often, unspoken, words.  You see, in the same way I had a plan before his birth of the way I wanted my son’s life to be, as well as the relationship I wanted for the two of us and what I “needed” from him, I realized that I had unconsciously done the same to others. Therefore, I missed a lot of what was being said to me, simply because I chose to hear only the language that I understood; MINE. That is to say that I would feel disheartened and perhaps unloved (yes, that’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s imperative to lay it all out there when you’re attempting to acknowledge and evolve) when my son could not have a long-winded conversation with me discussing his thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, rather than see what he was telling me in his own language. His own language being that of wanting me to have freshly picked and arranged flowers (by him) on the table more often than not. His never allowing me to be the “pig” during a family game of Pig In The Middle. We were all very amused by this when it first started, but he’s completely serious and it’s happened every time we play. “I don’t want mom to be in the middle,” he will say and promptly grab the ball and take over the spot as pig. I realize he’s being protective of me and it warms my heart. His love of my look when I’m in full eye makeup (yes, he’d keep me this way 24/7 if he could) and the high praise that I “look like a passion fruit” (he’s had a past-at least I hope it’s past-fixation with the Annoying Orange) and his way of giving me a hug so that he can stick his nose in my hair and say, “you smell good mom.”  He’s taller and bigger than me now, so I tell my husband it’s like being hugged by a high school boyfriend (this is me wanting a buddy almost my own size around all the time!) Don’t get me wrong, these teen years have been cause for some major adjustments. But let’s just leave that for another day…

It isn’t always easy to “get” what others are trying to say to you because when it comes to loving people, we each essentially speak our own language. If we get into our heads that there’s only one “right” way to express this love, we are totally missing the boat on what is being offered to us. It may not have been offered in the manner you expected or the method which you would use yourself or with the words you would have chosen to speak, but that makes it no less real or heartfelt to the person who is doing the offering. In grasping that concept I could finally appreciate the very magnitude of love that was actually being extended to me.

The words of the voice remain a constant in my life. What’s ridiculous is that it’s taken me this long to realize that those words have already come to fruition. It all IS alright. We didn’t do it alone and it didn’t happen overnight, and he IS fine. The thing is, he always was. The only one who needed a cure was me and while there’s no actual “cure” that will bring about unfailingly unrestricted awareness, I’m thankful for the light that’s been sent through those around me that illuminate a range of perspectives besides my own limited view as I continue the life-long process of learning the language. And for that I am humbly grateful.