This is a picture of Jay. Jay is my son. Jay is autistic. We wish that he weren’t, because his autism makes life difficult for him and for those who care for him. But there you go. It is a fact.
Given that we can’t do what we desire more than anything else, which is to wave a wand and make his autism vanish, what can we do? We can feel sorry for ourselves. I’ve tried that one a lot. It hasn’t helped (not yet, anyway!). We can hope the world will spontaneously get better, but as they say in the Army, hope isn’t a plan. There’s nothing wrong with hope, but hope plus a plan beats hope any day.
Here’s the plan. I’ve thought about this, and it’s about the only thing that makes sense. We can raise money to be used by skilled researchers to help understand the origins and nature of this baffling condition. Every new scrap of insight they gain is helpful, not least for its value in helping us cope, those of us standing in the long shadow of autism. And with a plan in place, it becomes a little more reasonable to hope that we may be able to make real gains against current cases and prevent future cases of autism.
Here’s how you fit into the plan.
Coming up this Sunday, October 19th, my family will be participating in the Autism Speaks fundraising walk called Walk Now for Autism.
This is the link to my wife Wendy’s fundraising page: Wendy Gulley’s page.
Give!
As usual, I include Wendy’s email message below, for those of you who want to learn more details about what Jay’s been up to in the last year.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 