Two Weeks With Autism

I never saw a prettier child. I say child although she is almost 16. She is my niece, my God child, my sister's beloved child, and she has Autism. My DH and I just spent two weeks with my sister and her two children. One is autistic and one has ADHD. My sister has her hands full, and what I planned as a vacation turned out to be an eye opening difficult time for all. I don't know how my sister can do it, all alone.
Years ago they would have just considered her retarded and placed her in an institution, where she would have lived her life mindlessly, drugged and forgotten. When I look at her beautiful face I am reminded of how innocent she is. No one knows what that frown means on her face, no one can read her, she is an enigma. What thoughts go through her head I wonder. Why does she lose her temper for no reason and begin to beat herself about the head with hard, closed, fists. She knows enough to throw a fit to get her way, but not to understand why she can't always have her way.
She recognizes the Dollar Store or Rite Aide, where she knows her mother will buy her comic books and crayons. She will tear the pages out and throw them on the floor, angry if you try to discard them. Her reasoning a mystery never to be unraveled.
I couldn't do it. She doesn't even know how to care for her personal needs. What would happen to her if my sister died. I know I couldn't handle her. What on earth would I do?
My sister is overprotective. I understand it, it's hard to watch, but I do understand it. If you give her whatever she wants she will be happy, but you will not. I try to tell her things, ideas, suggestions, but she won't listen. She over compensates for the divorce and I feel awful to say I know how he must feel. There is no fix for this problem. There is just a very pretty young woman who will never have a life, never fall in love, never be a real person, how sad. And a family torn apart by something they could not fix.
Autism is a terrible disease, affliction, mental disorder, whatever you want to call it. It has ruined the life of a young human child and of those around her.
A cure has to be found, or at least a way to prevent it. Imagine what she could have accomplished, if that little mind could have opened up to the world.
We have to fix this!!! Support the study for a cure.

Scenes from Vermont childhood

After my book was released on the first, I heard from a special close friend who I patterned a character in my book after. She reminded me of these two events

It must have been 1968 when we were on vacation in Vermont. Lake Champlain is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The VonTrapp family didn't go to Vermont for nothing. From Mount Mansfield, to Keeler's bay on the lake, there is nothing to compare to the scenery and the ambiance.

In the fifties and sixties there were lots of little gift shops everywhere. My mother and grandmother collected Fenton ware and tea cups galore. You know the kind of stuff they are calling shabby sheik and selling for a fortune to us boomers. It decorates tea rooms and little cafes. And we are buying it, it brings back memories, and it really is nice stuff.

Anyways, my whole family was there and my parents had allowed me to bring along my best friend Betsy from Canada. We had such a good time, water skiing in water so cold I wouldn't put my toe in it now. But to the young it is still a great lake for swimming, boating, fishing, you name it.

Well one night the whole family and several relatives were at camp and it was dark out. One of those nights on which you can see the milky way. And everyone started screaming, "there's a UFO outside right overhead." A massive scramble of people from the beach, the camp, out front sitting on the porch, or just anywhere, streamed out to the front lawn to get a glimpse.

They were all oohing and aahing. "Look at the lights, Oh my God, they might land." A myriad of yelling people massed a little closer together, and got quiet. And then it was gone, just like that. It was a huge ship in everyone's mind and to this day I have no idea what it was. And to this day I am pissed that I wasn't wearing my glasses and couldn't see a damn thing. I hated the way I looked in those horrible black foggles my parents had picked out. So I missed it.

The next day my friend and I decided to go for a rowboat ride. We hopped in the boat and started to leave. Then I heard it from my dad, "take your sisters with you." Just great, they wanted to be wherever I was and I wanted to have a little time to myself. So the two brats jumped in wobbling the boat horrible. And if I am not wrong, my other sister wanted in too.

So Betsy and I started to row, and we got quite a ways from shore. We might have tried to fish, I just don't remember. But after awhile in the hot sun, with no water, we decided to head back in. So we started to row, and row, and row, but we still drifted further from shore. Just then my parents and uncles and aunts drove by in a speedboat waving as they left. We started screaming for help, but I guess they thought we were waving and couldn't hear us over the motor.

I don't have to tell you what kind of mood we were all in when the cruiser's drove back by an hour or so later. They towed us in. To this day I have never set foot in a rowboat since and I never will.

Ah childhood how did we survive it?