I can swim with a shark

Took Sharkboy and his brother to see the movie "Oceans" in the theater. Towards the end, they showed footage of a man swimming with a shark. The narrator was saying how we are discovering that sometimes the things we think are impossible are not. He said that sometimes we find a smile behind the most gruesome face. And it did inspire awe, watching a human traveling right alongside that awesome, frightening creature.

I cried, silently. My boys couldn't tell. But I knew God was giving me a visual of what is happening with me and my son. I am swimming alongside of him and I am not afraid. We are together and everyone is alright.

You see, it is but for the grace of God that my son is not destructive or violent. Autism is a disease of extremes and my son is sometimes passive, but more often volatile. Even when he gets excited at times, it is a jagged, tense excitement. He is definitely the shark.

I think back when he was little, those haunting years when a mother knows something is terribly wrong but assumes it is her. All those episodes that I expected him to be something he could not. Looking back, I expected him to be a dolphin. I got angry at him. I got frustrated. Of course, a shark can never be a dolphin.

Isn't is ridiculous that my own pediatrician said she was reluctant to mention the possibility of autism? She didn't want to freak me out or mislead me. How could she not see that I needed the truth?

Once it sunk into my mind and heart that he was a shark, not a dolphin, then I could learn. I have learned how to swim with sharks - when to pull back, when to come close, when to shut up. I have found some peace in facing the unpredictable. Best of all, I have learned that I can swim without fear.