Progress over Perfection.
That’s a phrase I think about a lot. In the most challenging years of our son’s life, post autism diagnosis, it felt like we were frozen in time.
Or moving backwards even. But never forward.
Our son was in pain, but we didn’t know why or what. He didn’t sleep or communicate. He hurt himself and us. He rarely smiled.
For years it seemed like he wasn’t made for this big, confusing world. And to top it off, the world didn’t seem to want him either.
But we didn’t give up on him. And we refused to let the world give up on him.
We didn’t demand perfection, but we did demand progress.
We just left the doctor. I sat in awe as I watched my son count to 30 with his fingers while the nurse took his pulse. He didn’t scream when she touched his skin. He didn’t run when she took his temperature.
He stood on the scale and for his height.
He smiled when the doctor asked where his heart was, proudly pointing to his chest. And high fiving me after when she told him good job.
The appointment was not perfect by anyone’s standards. There were struggles…trust me.
Very little is easy for him. But his progress…I am shocked. I am proud.
And no, there is no magic pill to fix his hard. There is no snapping fingers or even logic at times.
We just refused to give up on him. And we refused to let him give up on himself. We practice everything. We try. We go. We do. We fail. We learn. We fall down. We get up. We cry. We cheer.
I know it sounds exhausting. And it is most of the time. And not just for us, for him too.
But he deserves to be in this world too. To experience the joy and the wonder that is out there.
Progress over perfection folks.
Crawl if you have too. But never stop moving.
