When I first got out of high school, I worked for a handful of years in downtown Washington, DC. I used to see quite a few men and women living on the streets. One morning, coming off the subway and riding the escalator to the street level, I remember very vividly a homeless gentleman saying to me, "do you have a cigarette?" I didn't say anything and kept walking. He started following me down the street shouting, "didn't you HEAR me? I asked you for a cigarette!" I turned around, looked at him and said, "I don't smoke." His personality suddenly changed and he apologized for yelling at me. Since moving here to the Midwest, I rarely see someone holding a sign saying they need money, food or a job. Shortly before Christmas, the hubby was asking me what I wanted for a gift. I told him I already have everything I need. Yesterday, when I was on my way to a meeting for the disability ministry, while waiting at a red light, I saw a gentleman probably about my age, holding up a sign that said, "hungry." I only had $3.00 on me. I thought to myself, I could ignore him, but it was so incredibly frigid yesterday that I rolled down my window and handed the money to him. You would have thought I was giving him a million dollars. He was so grateful. I hope later on in his day, he went down the street and got out of the cold and bought himself a cup of coffee. Who am I to judge whether he was honest or not? My feeling was that if he was standing on a street corner when it was so cold, he wasn't doing it out of choice, but out of necessity. Maybe he had a small child that needed formula or some diapers. Hard to know. These are the people on the "fringes of society." As I sit in my house this morning writing this post, hearing my heat just click on, I'm extremely grateful and thankful for having food on the table and a roof over my head.
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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