Saturday, March 12, 2011
Chapter 220:
at 14:22
You know, with autism practically infiltrating my life, it has become all-so-normal to me that I don't even feel the abnormality that people will label them with.
Because of this internship, there was this point in time, this little point in which I told myself:
If the world must always have its share of autistic children, I wouldn't mind one of my kids being autistic.
(Yes, the husband is not in the picture, and the fact that I can't negotiate with God to have only ONE is also lingering in the background, but oh well, it's my brain at its work.)
Evidently something happened to shake me out of this thought and belief.
On Tuesday, JunMing (Yes, him again! :D) hurt himself in school, and being the teacher closest to him, I brought him to the clinic.
Surprisingly, he was so well-behaved that I am so proud of him, but of course he'll never know that aside from my constant ruffling of his hair. LOL.
He never once cry, nor any unconventional behaviour.
He sat when I told him to, and waited patiently.
It's a feat.
Yet, his inability to talk and his child-like behaviour which was deemed inappropriate for his 11-year-old build made others stare at him.
STARE and GAWKED AT, and totally not discouraged by my look of disapproval.
(And I rather thought I had deadly stares.)
Granted, they can have their curiosity, and of course, their ignorance as their claim.
And definitely, it didn't help that JunMing look so perfectly normal (and handsome!).
But at the point, did I realise that, whatever I have learnt about autism will never hold in the world out there.
Whatever I learnt and experienced, was in a sheltered environment that is so fully accepting of autism.
Which is true, mine's a school with this kid differing from the other only in terms of severity.
Yet, there never once was a normal kid there to insert a sense of reality in this environment.
No ugly contrast in nature.
No scary differences at learning inabilities.
Nothing of the sort to raise the alarm that learning ABC at the age of 7, matching one to 1, two to 2, three to 3, is indeed delayed.
Very delayed.
Of course, I never thought it was normal, but you know, how such can become so commonplace.
How autism is in fact the normalcy in my school.
How everyone is so accepting of them.
Which the world isn't.
& that's why being a parent is so difficult.
And the magnitude of the entire thing finally crashed down onto me.
Whoa, me and my idealistic beliefs were so ludicrous, no?
.
And yet again, I have something to thank JunMing for.
The lessons he's given me, even if it's the last week I'm teaching him.
And I do love him, and hope that he'll know.
Know that I really have grown attached to him.
And that I tried my best to look after him in school.
& that he's my favourite.
I hope he knows. Newer Posts
