Not Just Any Plate

A little tear left my eye a couple of days ago.

You see, this plate had been a constant in our household for the last 10 years. Not just any plate, but a plate that saw many great times and not so great times with Ethan growing up and his Autism.

I don’t even remember where it came from. How we got it.

I don’t even really like monkeys.

Ethan saw the plate broken on the bench and didn’t even flinch. I was the one that was sentimental and emotional about it all – it had meaning to me not him.

He learnt how to use cutlery with this plate. Steve and I spent hours upon hours coaxing him to eat dinner, and this was while as a 4 year old boy, he had limited to no verbal skills, screaming for up to 8 hours a day with spontaneous nose bleeds and head banging against walls just from his pure frustration of not being able to communicate or be understood.

Autism.

Fuck me.

IT.WAS.HARD.

I didn’t hear the word “mum” until he was nearly 5. I bawled and howled like a baby so many times in the early years of Ethan’s diagnosis, grieving for the child that I would never have, petrified of the unknown and not confident that I had what it took.

And the hours, turned into days, weeks, months and years. And I did/do have what it takes to do this. Because you know what? It called being a parent. Whether your child is “normal”, or challenged with a disability, the best that you can do is love. And love I do.

I have walked past this plate on my bench about a hundred times the last couple of days. I can’t bring myself to throw it out.

So for now this plate will stay with us, broken as it is – but still here.

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