Happy Birthday to a Sensitive, Borderline-Autistic Boy

Has it really been five years? Man, time flies. I still remember the day you came, a screaming angry red little baby in the hospital. I remember the day when I first met you and felt overwhelmed with what is to come. You changed everything.

Since that day five years ago, life was never the same. The house was never the same. How I scheduled and prioritized tasks was never the same. It was a start of a journey, a journey called parenthood and fatherhood.

I had aspirations for what I wanted you to be. I had dreams of what I wanted to show you. I wanted you to have all the opportunities that I had and those that I didn't. I wanted you to become the man I am, the man that I haven't become and the man that you will become as an individual.

Five years seems like such a short time. Yet, five years has been a long journey. From the beginning when you came home, it was a constant struggle of trying to figure out how to be the best parent for you. From the beginning we felt we were inadequate in our abilities to raise you. From the beginning we gave you to God and trusted that He would bring you up and we would just be a part of it in the earthly realm.

During these five years, you have taught us patience, you have taught us priority, you have taught us to slow down in life, you have taught us to pray and depend on God to get through the day, you have taught us what it means to be sensitive.

You are a sensitive child. You were a baby that lagged a bit behind in growth and was even considered to be borderline Aspergers, depending on whether you base the diagnosis on the old or new criteria for ASD. But it was all in God's own timing. It was not about our dreams and desires for you, so much as what God has planned for you and made you to be. We learned to love you for who you are. We learned to be patient and let you grow at your own speed. We learned to reorient what we thought mattered for something that mattered more.

You taught us what it meant to be sensitive to your thoughts and feelings. You helped us navigate the struggle of learning to listen to you when you are not calm and doing everything we don't want you to do. You taught us that it was alright for a boy to cry and to be in tune with his inner self.

In essence, you have shown us a simplified life that does not care too much about what people thought or wanted. You have shown us a side to humanity that is often overlooked and viewed as a weakness. You have been a window to the human soul for us. And ultimately you have been a window into our own humanity and lack of perfection.

Life with you has been a rollercoaster. As with all rollercoasters, there has been its ups and its downs. Sometimes it's in the heat of your tantrum that I learn it's alright to let go and move on. Sometimes it's in your sensitivity and your crying that I realize the brutality of the demands of life. Sometimes it's in your innocent and repetitive questions that I learn it's OK not to have all the answers. And sometimes it's in your imagination or lack thereof that I learn there is a fine line between what is real and what is not.

Five years is not a long time but it feels like it has been a long time. Five years is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of your life. Here is where the journey will continue, a continual lesson of living, loving and accepting.

You, my boy, are now five. Five years into your childhood and development. And I had five years to be a better father, I hope. I may not be the father that you wish for but I hope to one day be the father you can be proud of being a son to.