Broken Banana Love

My son has autism. 

As long as I've known that, it is a hard sentence to type.  It gets to my core and stings every single time.

When he was six months old I said to my friend, "If I didn't know better, I'd think he has autism."  Later, at 15 months, I knew for sure.  By 16 months he was in therapy.  And, by 2 years 4 months he had his "official diagnosis."  For months before his diagnosis, I had been attached to my computer reading and researching all through the night many nights.  I was bound and determined that my son would be one of the few to beat the odds.  That he would overcome this and not let it rob him of his true happiness from meaningful relationships.  I promised I would dedicate my life to helping him.

And so I broke that banana.

You see, part of Jake's autism involved being very inflexible and going into a tantrum if things didn't go his way.  He hated, loathed, despised broken bananas.  Now, he loved bananas.  As long as they stayed in one piece.  But, if it accidentally broke I'd have to throw it away (or eat it myself) and get him a new one.  God forbid, that the LAST banana in the house broke.  So, one day, standing across our peninsula counter from him in the kitchen I did the unthinkable.....

I broke that banana on purpose and told him he was going to have to deal with it.

Why?  To be mean and nasty?  No.  To make my child unhappy?  No.  To send him into a fit of rage?  Most definitely not.  Why then did I break that banana?

Because I loved him so much and I decided I was willing to help him through even the toughest of times to learn to handle the world around him.  All the joys, all the sadness.  All the reasons for excitement, all the disappointments.  All the whole bananas, all the broken bananas.  I would be there.  And, the tough part started that day at 2 years old when I would decide that instead of crutching him through and trying desperately to keep things in order for him, I would rock his world and carry him through it.  Because the world is not orderly, even at 2 years old.  And, we were starting that day. 

And I never looked back.


I'm going to re-post on my next entry a blog entry from a private blog that I have.  Then, I will start with where we are today.  Following that, I will travel back over the almost decade with my sweet boy and try my best to recount how we got here.  I don't know if anybody cares.  But, I have it all in my head and still fresh in my heart and I want to spill it for myself and anyone who is interested in reading it.

So, here we gooooooooooooooooooooooooo......