PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Every Day is a
By Gill MARSHALL
“D
o you think she’ll get better, Gill?”
My mother asked that question when
she and my father came by for coffee
one evening.
All I remember is shaking my head. I am
not sure if I was shaking my head to respond to the
question or out of sheer shock that such a question
had been asked.
To get better, you first have to be sick. Autism is not
a sickness. This is our life and we make it work. Some
days I get it wrong; some days I get it right.
“But she’s getting worse,” my father commented as he
sat across from me in between mouthfuls of freshly
dunked biscuit.
Was she? I didn’t think so. Perhaps it was because
she refused to come out of her room when they vis-
ited. They visit so infrequently—two or three times a
30 | Autism Parenting Magazine | Issue 68
year. If she had come out of her room, she most likely
would not talk to them.
It’s nothing personal, of course.
My mother sighed loudly and her shoulders dropped
as she shuffled the birthday present across the floor
to me. That was the reason for their visit: to drop off
a birthday present for their granddaughter.
I understood a little of how my mother felt. They
had gone to the trouble of selecting a suitable gift,
wrapped it, and drove the three miles to our apart-
ment to drop it off. It was the least my daughter
could do, to come out of her room, accept the gift,
make a big fuss, and do everything else my mother
expected, right?
What many fail to grasp is that people with autism
deal with things in their own ways, and it is import-
ant to allow them the freedom to do so. After all, if
we don’t want to do something we find mentally ex-