Graduation

Our daughter graduated from high school yesterday and our monkey wasn’t there.

I thought about this for months. I debated to take him with us. I mean how could he not be there celebrating his sister’s achievements?

But there were going to be over 700 students graduating. Multiply that with all of the families, I knew it would be overwhelming for him. And my husband offered, if it was too much, he’d leave with our monkey and take him home. And that would mean two of us would…n’t be there. But I realized this was wrong too. Our daughter wanted us there; i know she’d understand if my husband left. But is that right? Shouldn’t today be about her? Celebrating her accomplishments?

So we decided to get a babysitter. Which to be honest other than my parents, we’ve never done before. We hired one of my husband’s students who was part of the autism awareness committee.

Our family and friends joined us to celebrate our daughter while our son was enjoying himself at home watching his cartoons. Then he went to sleep at 8 pm, just a typical evening for him. And it was so calming to know he felt happy and safe with this young lady, his new friend.

In the meantime we were able to be with our daughter and enjoy taking pictures and even having dinner without worrying about the amount of people or noise levels surrounding us.

I do wish our picture included our son, but I also know that this was the best decision for us. This is our new ‘normal’. This is what autism does. We have to compromise. And I know these may be small things for others, but they are big things to me.

And sometimes it’s hard to feel how unfair this is. 😥