This is a tricky blog post to write. If you are not a member of our community, or if you are new to "AutismLand," you may not be aware that we don't all love each other and share warm fuzzy hugs. At least, historically. Unfortunately, I hear this is true in many advocacy communities, for example, such as breast cancer, etc….Yada. Yada. Eyeball roll. Get with it people and get over yourselves! I know….So, I've done something I SWORE I'd never do. While I've tried not to damn much of anything or anyone via the words of  "The Journey with Grace," the blog, I have alluded in past posts over the last four years that there's a BIG national charity that purports to speak for our people. Historically, it's been my experience that it hasn't via its Madison-Avenue, flush-funded ad campaigns painting my daughter and others' autism as bad. Very bad. Something to eradicate the hell out of. Keep reading. Keep. Reading….

BUT. Times change. People soften. Including organizations. Including me. My theory, and shared with other autism veterans of like mind: when the grandson of monied powerhouses Bob and Suzanne Wright (he, the former CEO of General Electric and Universal Studios,) was diagnosed with the "A Word," like almost all parents, (and, many grandparents,) they could not see the forest through the trees. ("Slay the damn beast!" "Kill the ugly, fierce dragon!") They had money. Lots of it. They had POWER. Serious war-waging power. And they brought it all to our struggling autism community. Big Time. Unlike even Hollywood producer Jon Shestack and his artist wife Portia Iverson did when they created CAN. That is: Cure Autism Now…or as we in the "Acceptance Camp" used to say: "CAN, DAN [Defeat Autism Now…via nutritional and off-label meds and other alternative treatments] no thank you, man." Shestack no longer thinks autism is so bad. I hear. Eventually, he saw daylight amongst the tall, towering timbers.

Like a Goliath version of Pac-Man, Autism Speaks ate up almost all the "Davids" of AutismLand, excepting a few, including the organization I used to be most loyal to–Autism Society of America, the first and the oldest, but which had lost much of its fizzle due to years of poor and mis-management. (I hear that's changing, too.) I still support and speak at the bi-monthly Autism Orientation for our local off-shoot, Autism Society of Middle Tennessee, for whom I wrote and produced From Heartache to Hope: Middle Tennessee Families Living with Autism, an acclaimed black-and-white coffee table book of essays ever so handsomely photographed by child, family and special needs portrait photographer Rebekah Pope. 

You see, the word "hope" and the emphasis on "the good" versus what is deemed as "the ugly" of autism is one of the many factors that helped drive an even deeper wedge within our community.

But. It's time to heal. During our April 2012 national Autism Awareness Month when my autism artist daughter, Grace Goad, had three solo art shows, I took note of the evidence that we'd grown up a great deal. I have friends who swear to me that Autism Speaks is slowly changing its "autism is bad and must be cured" [it can't be] mentality. Plus, the giant, they say, is trying to be more gentle with the minions who came before it and the rest of us out here. You may think this is all silly, but what if you are an adult (or any human being living with this difference) and an enormously influential organization launches very public advertising blitzes saying the way you function in the world must be obliterated–? I can sincerely thank the behemoth that they fund autism research at Vanderbilt University and many other worthy entities. I am told that there is a lot of misunderstanding about how monies are spent by the national New York-based nonprofit. I still believe the past. I am told the past is dead. Yeah, I know. I write here a lot about leaving dead pasts, and this is a case where I've hung on to it. Probably to a detriment. Yeah, not probably, but, for sure in many ways. "My 'bad.'"

Folks who are acquainted with me in the disAbility community know that I'm quick to answer "No," when they ask me to serve on committees. I site my severe allergies to them. But I have a weakness–a good one–for art-related causes. Of course. I'm not on any committee related to this Autism Speaks Tennessee charity art benefit, but I thought long and hard when I was asked if my artist daughter with autism would contribute by painting a puzzle piece to be auctioned and benefit the charity. I consulted former allies in the ancient anti-AS fight. They had laid down their weapons. Maybe it was time I did, too. They said peace talks were happening. Rumors were circulating about collaboration around a common mission to just freakin' help folks on the autism spectrum–however each organization deemed to do that.

So, with trepidation, I answered "Yes," this time. In the mail we then received a sturdy wooden puzzle piece and I gave it to Grace to paint. My nearly 19-year-old just happens to be painting these days in an abstract patchwork pattern of color, which made her contribution for the benefit resemble the autism puzzle piece ribbons that our autism community at large has used for a decade-plus, and also the logo of the Autism Society of America. What is interesting is that my barely conversational daughter with moderately severe autism and intellectual disAbilities came up with this on her own. Once again, in my belief and experience, that demonstrates that so much goes on in the complex mind of people with autism that neurotypicals fail to credit, understand and honor. What some label horrible, does and can create beauty and is even beautiful itself. In the case of my daughter, who is very challenged by her diagnosis, the beauty of her art is because of her enigmatic disAbility. Sure, her mother has artist genes, but the compilation of familial genes and triggering environmental factors that birthed autism in her the day she was conceived, are accentuated by the oddities and abnormalcies of her disorder.

Now that. Speaks. For. Itself.

I am forever planted in the Autism Acceptance Camp with a flag pole pitched to flap (no pun intended…a little inside humor if you don't get that reference,) and wave this disorder is a way of being. A way of being human. And being human is never a "bad thing," in my book. (Some human being's behaviors? Yeah. Some autism behaviors? Well, yeah: challenging. For sure. And not always very pretty. But the person, regardless of the label is beautiful in their humanity here on this earth. And, that is my truth.)

Because of our participation in this event, I don't know who will land on this post and judge me harshly for my stance. Just as I cannot let the stares at my daughter's differences–something that has re-emerged in full glory now that we are not only odd-acting but also now an adult–I will not choose…because it is a choice…to carry what others may think via a suffering, weighted backpack of burdens. I challenge you/them to read that I acknowledge this is tough journey. Damn-straight. Tell me about it. We made it through early intervention and 13 years of public school–almost, as Grace is a senior now. Now we are joining the 500,000 youth with autism who are and will be aging out of services in the next decade. And, it happened in the. Blink. Of. An. Eye. That is no picnic, I assure you. But let's attack the problem of lack of services and awareness and education and the medical challenges of the disorder. But not the people who've come into this world with "diffabilities." Or, each other. I'm working on the later. Guess our puzzle submission is one step in the process….

We are honored to be a part of this event exhibiting alongside esteemed, favored son Nashville artist Paul Harmon and the likes of Nashville celebrities, such as Amy Grant. Check out one of Harmon's pieces, here, and Grant's, here. The pieces are available at the Nashville-based event this Friday, December 1, and also via ebay. At "Journey with Grace" publication time, Autism Speaks Tennessee was busily photo-documenting GraceArt and other puzzle pieces and uploading them to ebay. Check back if the items you wish to view are not uploaded yet. Also check out the local version (above) of this replicated nationwide event via "Master Pieces for Autism" on Facebook. The area chapter organizer is a busy college English professor and mother of three boys, one of whom has autism. That's reason enough to not merge autism battles with the mother wars. Though our strategies and the organizations we support and how we may view this disorder may differ, just as in national and world politics and religion–sometimes, believe it or not equally thorny issues as compared to autism community squabbles–what matters most is this: another mother, another human, doing what s/he believes is best to help his/her child and community. A common, united goal of different routes, but in the end, a journey with autism. That. That is the thing to remember. At least for me.