by LeisaHammett | Jun 17, 2015 | Autism/Disability, Midlife and Beyond, Motherhood
Making friends. Playdates. Sleepovers. Birthday parties. Rites of childhood, true? Not so much. Not for everyone. Not for my daughter. One of the things I grieved most in her growing up years was how her brain disorder impaired her socially and communicatively,...
by LeisaHammett | Jun 4, 2015 | Autism/Disability, Midlife and Beyond, Motherhood
What was I thinking 18 years ago? What did I think this Now I am living would be like? Last weekend, I sat on a park bench with tears suddenly forming rivers down my face as I watched my friend, once again, interrupt our conversation to run after her special needs son...
by LeisaHammett | May 21, 2015 | Autism/Disability, Grief & Loss, Midlife and Beyond, Motherhood, Uncategorized
The veteran parents warned us newbies that we’d soon get a rude shock and it would be followed by a series of shocks throughout the growing up years of our sons and daughters with autism. If we were lucky enough to receive a diagnosis before the age of three,...
by LeisaHammett | Apr 27, 2015 | Autism/Disability, Grief & Loss, Motherhood, Spirituality
Funny how time renders perspective. Even a different way of looking at things once held as definitive truth and “the way.” The “right” way. I now get it. I totally get why that older mom was so miffed and would mouth off against research versus...
by LeisaHammett | Apr 20, 2015 | Art, Autism/Disability, Midlife and Beyond, Motherhood, Nashville!
Nashville Film Festival Features Documentary About Youth w/ Autism in Transition 4/23 A first kiss, a first dance. These are the rites of passage of American youth that hold the promise of magic, romance, and initiation into adulthood. For youth from all walks...
by LeisaHammett | Apr 16, 2015 | Autism/Disability, Grief & Loss, Midlife and Beyond, Motherhood, Obama/Politics, Spirituality
In our nearly two-decades-old, small, local meet-up group of moms with sons and daughters who have disAbilities, (plus a dad or two, and a few friends who work on behalf of our community,) we call her the queen. Not just any queen, but the Queen Mother. Or,...
