Welcome to Autism Monastery

An introduction and an invitation

I did not choose for my son to be autistic. It is not something I would have chosen because I was taught, from a young age, that autism is bad. Being autistic is undesirable. It is not a word that brings about warmth or hope or anything a parent would dream for their child. No parent wants their child to have struggles with communication or social skills or gross motor skills. It does not have to be a scary word, and yet our world has made it one.

And yet I receive autism because I receive my son, a boy who was born into a world where he is “the other.” Beautiful, yet different. And through his differences, I am different and will never be the girl I was before I met him. Thank God for that.

Some days, the social differences or the language gap or the sense of feeling behind can overwhelm the beauty. Those days are dark and lonely. Other days, I am taken by the delight of my son, his smile as he laughs in the pool, when he keeps kissing my cheek and telling me, “I love you, Mom” over and over and over again. When I embrace these parts of his pure, unselfconscious self, I am the luckiest mom in the world. The secret is, I don’t feel sorry for him or for us one bit. I walking around a secret garden and doing just fine.

Anyone who has pity on him or thinks, “Thank goodness I am not autistic” or “Thank goodness my grandchild is ‘healthy’ or ‘normal’ has not been found by autism, yet. And that is okay.

Growing up in America, and then in Dallas, Texas, and then in my specific neighborhood, I learned that being the same as everyone around you is the goal. Socially, physically, economically, etc., it is just a safer bet to blend in the same pool everyone is swimming in. It is the image of the desirable life. I did not have to encounter autism until autism found me through the gift of my son. Sure, I tried to be warm and accepting of others who were not swimming in the pool I was swimming in and perhaps I would have gotten out okay. I did not have to deal with it until I became a mother of a child who is different.

I am dealing with it now. Thank God for that.

I am calling this page Autism Monastery because mothering my autistic son is my monastery. Like a monk stepping away from the noise and inside a quiet space to be close to God and to become more like him, this monastery is the furnace of transformation into my being more like God. I did not choose it. I accept it. And now, there is no other place I would rather be.

Stepping inside my son’s experience of the world has profoundly changed me, and I have the astonishing privilege to experience the world through my own senses, as well as considering his, at all times. Like a translator, I am living in between him and the world. My hope is that my words would always honor him and invite you into a deeper place of beauty and grace in your own life. Merely three years into this walk, the major facets of change I have experienced, so far, revolve around the themes of beauty, of time, of progress and efficiency culture, and of what it means to “know” and to “be close” to God. Thank you for joining me in this incredibly beautiful and hard journey.

Warmly,

Emily Griesbeck