This is my daughter. She is autistic. And let me tell you, she is F-ABULOUS.
Every day, she steps outside this door into a world that doesn’t quite understand her yet. Where stares and whispers and outright insults assault her everywhere she goes.
Like the R-word. Retard.
She can hear you. She understands every crinkle of your nose, every look of pity and she knows that your condescending tone of voice is more about your insecurity and discomfort than it is about her communication barriers.
Seriously. The F-word is so much more appropriate. Does this child look anything other than F-ABULOUS?
She may have challenges that are unique to you and I, but she isn’t complaining. She is overcoming. She hears the conversation and she is saying I AM WORTHY.
It is autistics like her that are changing the world every day with their determination and their spirit to change our perception of autism. With a single smile this child commands that you respect her heart, her intelligence, her inner fabulousness that shines brighter every day.
RETARD.
That word cuts deeper and inflicts more pain than any other weapon possibly could.
Unlike a bullet that rips through flesh, that word shreds the soul leaving the kind of scars that never heal.
Each day she steps outside our door and into the world, she is asking you to embrace her. She is expecting greatness of heart from you. She is expecting nothing less than what we all yearn for on this earth. Love and acceptance.
She deserves to live each day being FABULOUS, not continuously victimized by a word that is used by people so consumed by egoism they feel the need to protect their seemingly harmless right to wield their wordly weapons.
It has not always been easy. It has not always been fabulous. There have surely been people whose words have made the journey painful at times, and there have been so many more whose loving words have made it sweeter. The sweetest have been the moments when just one more person chooses to never use those hurtful words again.
My daughter is heaven on earth for me, my husband, and her older brother. The beauty of her transcends all boundaries of what words used to describe her could ever cage.
This is my daughter.
She is autistic.
Go ahead and drop the F-bomb, y’all. Because she is F-ABULOUS.
