Light it Up Blue

April is Autism Awareness month and April 2nd is Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. As I have been thinking on this the last few days so many emotions and thoughts have warred for my attention.  It seems like  autism is a hot topic nowadays and don't all things have a color assigned to them. I wondered why it needed a whole month and then again, why not the whole year!? What would our participation look like and mean? Why blue and not red or orange? Then today, as I was scrolling through Facebook a saying on a t shirt spelled it all out so clearly to me. It said, "April is Autism Awareness month but everyday is Autism Awareness day in our home." That's it for me in a nutshell-I am continuously aware of autism. My home, my work, my sleep, my family, my life is affected by autism everyday. That is why it feels strange and yet inspiring to me. I am all too aware of autism ALL the time.

 As I said earlier, April 2nd is Light it Up Blue and the color blue rubbed me a bit as well. Why Light it up BLUE? Blue is the color of my Garrett's eyes. Blue is just a touch of how I felt as I came to the mommy realization of the battle my baby would face every day. Blue is alot of things in our home, like the color of a clear sky and the color I like best on my boys. At the end of the day though, it is just a color, until you light is up, then it changes. That is how I would describe autism's effect on our life. It is just a word, a diagnosis until..... until it is a label placed on your baby or it becomes the doorway that connects you to your child's awesome potential. Autism felt dark to me for a while and it certainly still has it's days but it has also become a beacon of light to us. It has become the avenue for finding the tools to unlock our Garrett's awesomeness. It is bright and messy and vibrant, just like my boy. It is sensory bins, indoor swings, trampolines in the living room, and root beer in a can. It is our everyday wake up call, sometimes way too early, and what makes me crave my pillow every night. It is one of the brightest, most beautiful lights in my life.

Tying it all together this morning was my quiet time. I was reading a devotional on simple gifts and it asked a question about the greatest "simple" gift that you have waited for. My answer to the question posed was, "yes". In teaching Garrett how to communicate, the word "yes" was slow to come. We worked tirelessly on it and it was a thorn in our side for a very long time. I would want to scream when our sweet speech therapist would tell us that our homework was to keep practicing our yes/nos. I remember the first yes like it just happened. I cried. I clapped. I called daddy to share my joy. There are days when I want to say "no" to autism, hard, long, deflating days, but, when I look into those blue eyes and see the light that still needs set free from my G, all I can say is yes, absolutely and positively YES. Yes, we are aware of autism everyday and, yet, yes, we will light it up blue to help make others more aware. Yes, always yes.