Outskirts Press, INC.

We can only enjoy the rainbow after the rain has fallen…

A Fervent Hope is the story of the unstoppable, unconditional love of two parents who believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that autism was curable. They abandoned all the negative predictions, labels, and the grim future that had been placed upon their children and instead educated themselves and fought back. Their denial of the belief that autism had to be a permanent condition took them down a different path; they were forced to blaze a new trail for each of their children, resulting in the recovery of two while the third is a miracle in progress. Their story is unique because their boys were so different in their symptoms, their diagnoses, their treatment, and their recovery. The one constant, the one thing that was similar, was their parents' belief that anything and everything was possible. A fervent hope was all they needed to take the first step to full recovery. If you are going to recover your child you must abandon what you have been told and accept the fact that autism is curable; they live this new reality every day.

I have a clarity today that I didn't have before this journey began, a clarity that is only possible after a traumatic experience has passed and the dust has settled. I am finally willing and able to put all of the pieces of my life back together--both the heartache that I have done my best to keep at bay and the unimaginable joy that others will never experience. Every event and emotion has taken its place in my memory; holes have been filled and I am finally whole again. To see it in its entirety and begin to understand how important our lives are, I am humbled by the gifts we have been given. It is as if we have been given new eyes to see things that I hadn't been ready to see before. Nothing about this journey and new life has been linear; I have grown exponentially, more growth than you would expect in several lifetimes, and now it is finally time to stop and breathe. It is time to take a minute and understand the journey we have been given, choices we have made, and the effects of the new path we have created. I look at myself from the outside as I take the journey within my own mind. Slowly, the painful memories resurface, coming back like a rush of water that has been held back by my own mind not wanting to remember the pain of it all. All those years ago our life became complicated and heavy, weighed down by the diagnosis of three; we tried to keep our composure and our footing but before we knew it we were headed on a downward spiral into the darkness. As I step back and look at what has become of our straight line of success I see what looks like a giant scribble, like something created by the little boy with the violet crayon. When I look closer it seems to resemble a big ball of yarn with ideas and words trapped inside. There are doctor's definitive reports of lifelong illness, hopelessness, despair, lost dreams, and two broken hearts. As the ball sits still its colors are unrecognizable, a jumble of darkness, deep purple, steel grey, and dark brown. I step back and begin to assess what our lives have become, a confusion and sadness that doesn't in any way resemble what I remember from our lives before. This dark ball of confusion envelops us, but suddenly out of the darkness comes something more wonderful than I could have ever anticipated. Suddenly I realize this is where our life truly begins.