Finding Rest in the Scariest Moment of My Life
It was a warm, windy evening in McKinney, Texas on Saturday, August 28, 2021. I had walked my two boys to the neighborhood park located just half a mile from our house. Sam and Drew tend to be pretty active almost all the time, especially Drew. I was watching him climb the ladder to the top of the tall slides, whoosh his way down the enclosed tube as he squealed with delight, run across the playground, jump off large rectangular stones, then run back to the slides. The same routine over and over again. In many respects, his autism makes me feel as if I have a two-year-old living inside a seven-year-old body. His nine-year-old brother was content to sit and swing the entire thirty minutes of our park visit. More often than not, these two boys could not be more different. Both being diagnosed with ASD, they are proof that “once you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met one child with autism.” On this particular evening when it was time to walk home, my compliant Sam got out of h...