April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day. Please consider wearing blue and lighting up your house or office blue to help support and raise awareness for Autism. Our family has been doing this for the past three years and will be doing it again this year so when you drive by our house you will see our blue lights shining bright.
This year we were asked to write a story for Autism Speaks. They are a wonderful organization that raises Autism awareness everyday but on April 2nd they help light the whole world blue. www.lightitupblue.org They asked us to “Shine a Light on Autism” and this is the story we wrote.
My Daughter, My Joy, My Light
Our daughter Brooke is 13 years old. She is a beautiful, smart, funny little girl who has brought so much joy to our lives. So much that we can’t even imagine what life would be like without her. There is something about Brooke that makes her shine. She has this light inside her that shines brighter than the brightest star in the sky. The unfortunate part is that if you don’t take the time to get to know Brooke you would never see that bright light shining inside her. What you might see is an outside picture which doesn’t really allow that light to shine through. You might see a child who is pacing back and forth and flapping her hands. You might see a child who is making funny noises. You might even see a child who is screaming or yelling at her parents or crying because she didn’t get the toy that she wanted. That image is just one tiny little picture of our child. It doesn’t mean that we as her parents do not discipline our child or that we give her everything she wants. It doesn’t mean that she is weird or strange in any way. All it means is that she is unique in how she views the world around her. A lot of times this is because the world just doesn’t make sense to her. As World Autism Awareness Day approaches on Aril 2nd what we would like more than anything is if we could all just take a bit of time to really look. If we could all just stop looking on the outside and see what is on the inside maybe just maybe her beautiful unique light could shine through.
Dawn Gilmour and Steve Levesque
