If you have a child with delays odds are family, friends and casual acquaintances send you every blog post they find on a Sunday morning that might have the words 'delay' in them.
Some days I feel like rolling my eyes at these articles, blogs and Op-Eds sent to me. Some days they hit so close to home that I have to hurriedly wipe my tears away so that outwardly I am as strong as my daughter needs me to be. I can't afford to be a bumbling, emotional person, I have to be a rock hard advocate for my child's rights. Some days its impossible. Some days the flood of anxiety, fear and self pity crushes against the dam I've built inside and it is overwhelming. Some rare days I try to open up about all this but I quickly become an inarticulate mess. I can tell when I've said too much, that I've let too much out because no matter how close I am to that person I know I've become too real and made them uncomfortable.
I love that people send me these articles, even the poorly written or the ones that have absolutely nothing to do with being nonverbal. It means that for a minute during the day someone that is not me thought of my child. They thought of her as more than their child's friend, their great niece, they acknowledged that she isn't 'normal' and that our family is 'going through something'. It lets me know that no matter what she is loved by so many.
Some days I feel like rolling my eyes at these articles, blogs and Op-Eds sent to me. Some days they hit so close to home that I have to hurriedly wipe my tears away so that outwardly I am as strong as my daughter needs me to be. I can't afford to be a bumbling, emotional person, I have to be a rock hard advocate for my child's rights. Some days its impossible. Some days the flood of anxiety, fear and self pity crushes against the dam I've built inside and it is overwhelming. Some rare days I try to open up about all this but I quickly become an inarticulate mess. I can tell when I've said too much, that I've let too much out because no matter how close I am to that person I know I've become too real and made them uncomfortable.
I love that people send me these articles, even the poorly written or the ones that have absolutely nothing to do with being nonverbal. It means that for a minute during the day someone that is not me thought of my child. They thought of her as more than their child's friend, their great niece, they acknowledged that she isn't 'normal' and that our family is 'going through something'. It lets me know that no matter what she is loved by so many.
Signing 'more' and confused why she's not getting more Halloween candy.
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