When life ain't fair.

Sometimes it's too much.

Too much to bear, too much to understand, -- simply too much.

To have a child with autism, one could learn to accept and overcome. To have a child with autism, epilepsy, GI disorder, and a mystery-illness causing weight loss that he can't afford to lose to begin with, -- is just not fair.

I get that in life we must have "crosses to bear" -- what I don't get, is how life has free reign to keep nailing more crosses on the one you already have.

I don't get how heroes like Dr. Wakefield, who have done more for Autism and GI issues than anyone anywhere, must not only bear the cross of shame that others put on him because of being threatened by him, but must also now bear the cross of lawsuits in defending himself and the financial toll that takes. And not only those crosses, but as if that weren't enough, his sweet, angel of a wife was in a car accident and has a very long recovery road ahead of her.

I don't get how my friend, the person who is responsible for helping me get Brandon out of the public school that did nothing for him and into her school which has done everything for him, and who is the mother of a son who has autism, plus another sweet little boy --- I don't understand how her husband must be killed in a car accident.  Her love-of-a-lifetime soul-mate husband! 

I don't understand why each and every day I'm faced with knowing I have single friends who have children with autism and whose spouses have left them.

I don't understand why each and every day I'm faced with e-mails from parents of children with autism needing the financial resources that simply aren't out there.

I don't understand why each and every day my phone rings from parents who need help because their child with autism is not getting what the law requires them to get in the public school, but who do not know enough to fight them.  And even if they did know enough, they could never afford to.

I don't understand all those things and much more about this "Life with Autism."

I don't understand it to the point where I just want to scream in rage. I want to hit. I want to destroy. I want to simply shut out the pain and not care. 

I simply want to hate.

But what I do understand...

Is this...

You can't do that.
You can't shut out the pain.
Because if you do, this happens:

When you close your heart to the bad in life, you also close your heart to the good in life.
When you close your heart to not feel pain, you close it to not accept healing.
When you close your heart to not feel sadness, you close it to not feeling happiness either.
When you close your heart to keep sorrow out, joy can't get in.
When you close your heart to try and prevent that hatred from seeping in, love can't find its way out.
When you close your heart and reject God, you open it to allow satan in.
When you simply give up and don't care, thus shutting out all the lies and injustice, it means you've also given up the even greater fight to let the truth out.


And as much as life hurts sometimes, especially lately, I refuse to allow those things to happen.

I will keep my heart open to see the beauty, choose the happiness, and experience the joy that life has to offer.

I will keep my mouth open in proclaiming the truth.

I will.


Even on days like today, when I don't want to.