At 3 years, Wyatt had the cognitive level of a fourteen-month old and the language level of a seven-month old. I hated listening to the evaluations: those repetitive words made my son sound mentally and physically retarded. Nowhere in this evaluation did it talk about his dimpled smile or the sound of his laugh. Nowhere did it describe how his big blue eyes sparkled when he was happy. Or that he loved to dance and was fascinated by computers and numbers. And although this wasn't completely shocking to me because I knew deep down something wasn't right, I was still shocked. And if people could die from sad, I might not be here typing these words right now. I secretly hoped the doctor would tell me that Wyatt was actually allergic to the color green, and he and I would laugh at how hard of a struggle it has been and how easy it was going to be to fix. I would say, "I can't believe I didn't think of that," and I would go home and eliminate all greens from our life, and the light in Wyatt's eyes would come back to me. But that never happened. .
I cried in the car, I didn't want the comfort from my partner nor did I want to listen to the comfort that my sweet baby was in the backseat perfect the way he was. All I could think of was all the things I could've done to prevent autism.
When we finally pulled into our driveway, it was then that autism became painfully real. Wyatt ran right inside and onto his computer. His world was still the same as mine was shattering. It was too easy to imagine how isolating and sad his life – our life – would be. This was not the life we were supposed to have, I thought. Nothing I read prepared me for the pain, anger and sadness that I felt. The day after Wyatt was diagnosed, I was home alone with him and I couldn't take it anymore, I closed my bedroom door and buried my face in my pillow screaming as loud as could. Punching and kicking like a three year old having a tantrum.
