My grandmother was born on this day in 1903. She had a great marriage to my grandfather until he passed in 1969. She was a wonderful mother to my mom and my uncle. I don't remember ever seeing her upset or in a foul mood. She had the most upbeat personality and I could talk to her about ANYTHING and she would just sit there and listen for however long I wanted to talk (and with my big mouth that could sometimes be a LONG time)! When we cleaned out her apartment to get ready to move her into assisted living I was lucky enough to get some of her possessions. I got her yellow couch that she kept in her spare bedroom in her apartment. I also got some metal mixing bowls that I use frequently. When I went through my many years of college she was one of my biggest supporters. I remember when I was debating whether to take a typing class in high school she said, "Cathy, you can ALWAYS get a job if you learn to type!" How very true that was. All of my jobs I have had have involved some amount of typing. My daughter, my husband and my stepson were lucky enough to meet my grandmother. She passed away when I was pregnant with my son at 101 years old, so unfortunately he never got a chance to meet her. My grandmother traveled to many foreign countries. She would bring back dolls from the different countries she visited. My grandmother and I played endless card games of "Canasta" and boy, did she have a poker face! One of the times I spent the night at her apartment she invited me to play cards with her lady friends. What a cool group of women! One thing my grandmother never did was learn to drive. The story goes that when she tried to get lessons the instructor told her she would never be a good driver, so she never learned. She relied on the bus or others to help her get around. She would tell me how growing up in Missouri there would be tornadoes. She lived through the Great Depression and the Titanic sinking. My grandmother was truly a remarkable woman and a wonderful storyteller. I'm thinking about you today Grandma - Happy Birthday!!!!
When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...
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