A Flash of Normal

Normal is such a subjective word.  I mean who decides what is normal and what is not?  What is normal to me is most likely not normal to you or anyone else.  But flashes of age appropriate seemed , well weird.  Maybe a better title would have been flashes of typical. But then would non autism people get it.  Wow, a whole paragraph just on the title. On to better matters.

Logan is well past the flashes stage now.  We see  more age appropriate behavior than we do autism ones nowadays. He still surprises me when he does something completely typical for his age sometimes.  This weekend we were at a pool party celebrating a birthday.  The whole family was in the pool.  Logan was near me and I splashed him.  There is a celebration in itself.  Logan used to HATE to have water on his face and a splash in the past would have ended in a meltdown. This particular instance it ended with Logan splashing me back.  I was so surprised that he would do it that I got a face full of water.

God has always provided us with the flashes of the child inside when we needed them most.  Usually, it was after a tough day or during a difficult time.  Sometimes I had to look hard to find some semblance of typical but it was always there.  Sometimes it was something really small like a smile or a fleeting eye contact or a typical response to a question.  It was always there .  Just buried under a shell of autism that needed to be prodded open.  I learned quickly that for Logan , there was always a breakthrough after a regression.  Like he needed to go back and regroup before he could go forward.  That’s when I needed the flashes the most.  Nothing is worse than seeing your child unable to do something that you know he can clearly do.  It was maddening to say the least.

I still rejoice when the flashes come like the one Saturday.  It reminds me of how blessed I truly am.  It makes me appreciate all the hard work that Logan and I have done over the past 9 years of autism.  It’s not as painful now to see them but more encouraging. It doesn’t mean he’s normal now.  It just means that now we can see the true Logan.  The one that has been in there all the time.