Community

Wow.  I posted this over the weekend, and sent an email to Glennon over at Momastery to pass along our little story.  She posted it on her Facebook page today, and I quickly became overwhelmed at the flood of comments in response.

The internet is a scary place, sometimes.  With all of the communities I lurk in, over time I've learned to always stay out of the comments section, for the most part.  Nothing dents my faith in humanity faster than an open forum on...well, just about anything.  People are human, I know--they want to be right and they want to know better than the next guy.  Comment sections so often make me sad, thinking of all the people who feel the need to put others down solely due to their own insecurities.  Plus, I'm SUPER sensitive to criticism, so hearing mean things always makes me want to crawl in a hole and cry, even if those things are not about me.

As of now, 4,341 people have "liked" that post, and 88 people have shared it.  I've lost track of the comments, but every single one has been positive.  Mamas chimed in their own autism success stories--not in competition, but in solidarity.

Do you hear that?  they asked.  That's the sound of us cheering for [Little C].

THAT comment was the one that started the crying.

Such a small story, just a window into our daily lives, but who knows how many people saw it today--who knows how many got to see a happy side of autism when so often the crying, fretting and self-injurious behaviors are what make for more interesting news stories.

Earlier today, the company I worked for decided to run a little blurb about the 1 in 50 article publication on our intranet homepage.  The company I work for happens to be quite large, and I got several emails throughout the day, commenting on the article.

I usually never read these things, they said.  But I read this one, thank you so much for sharing.  

There were several iterations on this theme, and I couldn't help but wonder--will they remember this article when they, or someone they love, is affected by autism?  What if the words I've used have repercussions much farther than I ever thought they would when I wrote them?

A little intimidating, that.

I guess you never know what's going to reach someone, or how.

So I guess I'll just keep chattering, K?