Gifts of Autism

I never could have imagined that Autism would give my son gifts.  I didn't want to associate positive things with this hated word.  But, my son wouldn't be who he was if he didn't have it.  He wouldn't have some of the gifts that he has without it, so who am I to wish it changed.

My son is nine years old, heading rapidly to that huge double digit stage.  Most nine year old boys that I know are blood and guts and gore and grossness.  They are looking for snakes to scare someone with, rough and tumble.

Autism has gifted my son with a sensitivity that is rare in children.  He sometimes makes me see the world through a different set of eyes.

Today the boys and I spent most of the day today going back and forth from the "old" home place getting things from the yard.  When we went into the garage to gather a few left behind things, I picked up a box and began screaming.  Inside the box was a baby mouse.  I despise mice.  I grew up in a very poor home, and mice were ALWAYS in my house.  Mice seem to have an affection for me that I have never understood.  Once I woke up with a mouse sitting on my arm.  Another time one fell in love with me and would chase me all over the house and crawled up my leg.  Maybe it is all the cheese that I eat.  No lie!  Ask my family.  My brother finally had to take a broom to it when it chased me up a chair one day and then sat there staring at me.

Anyway, I digress.  So, I pick up the box and am trying to figure out what to do with it.  It has some of my books in it and some soccer shirts.  I pull the shirt up out of the box, and to my absolute HORROR find THREE more baby mice.  I am distraught.  Jackson is entranced.  They are young.  They don't even have their eyes open.  All I can see is ick and gross and MOUSE.  Jackson begins oooing and cooing all over them.  He asks if he can pet them.  He comments on how tiny they are, and how their momma must be missing them.  He asks if he can have them as pets.  I squawk out a NO.

He talks to them as if they are the sweetest little things in the world.  He reaches in and with the tip of his finger pets one of them and it squeaks.  He talks about how they must be afraid because of the noises that they are making.  He tells me that we must place the box back in the floor of the garage so that the momma can find her babies.

My heart began to hurt for the babies and their distraught momma.  As we get back into the truck to leave, he comments about how he will miss the little mice, and hopes that they are okay.

Who looks at a mouse and sees innocence and beauty?  I certainly never did, before today.