Throughout my lifetime, I have had more than one close call. In January of 1982, I was on the subway heading towards what is now called, Reagan National Airport, to catch a plane to go out of town. Further down the subway system and closer to the airport there was a bad subway accident that delayed me and made me miss my flight. I remember calling my parents and telling them that I missed my flight and wasn't sure what to do since the weather was really bad and I didn't think I could make it back home. My dad or mom said, "didn't you hear?" I was like, "hear what?" They told me that a plane had crashed into the Potomac River!! It turned out that the plane I should have been on had taxied onto the runway, but the pilot decided the weather was too dangerous (there was a bad snowstorm) and he had turned the plane around and decided not to take off. The plane right after the one I should have been on was the one that crashed!! When my daughter was still in diapers, I fell off a second story deck. Luckily, I only broke my arm. In June of 2010, I had to have a pretty serious operation because the doctors thought I might have had cancer. The latest close call was very recent. This past Christmas Eve, I turned on our oven because I wanted to put a roast in for dinner. Within about 15 seconds I heard sparks. I looked through the window into our oven and saw flames! I instantly turned off the oven and the fire went out. I have left my oven on from time to time to cook something while we're not at home. Believe me, I won't be doing that again! I shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn't been standing right there. I am one of those people that believes that all of us have a "guardian angel" or "angels" that kind of look over us and guide us through our lives. I keep my "guardian angel" pretty busy, but I'm glad that mine has been taking care of me so well!
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...
Comments
Post a Comment