More than Places
and Things,
People Matter
by Makasha Dorsey
On a bright and unusually crisp winter morning for Central Florida, I sat at my dining room table surrounded by half empty boxes that I should have been packing. Our moving day loomed less than a month away but I was distracted.
As much as I was eager to enter into the next chapter of my life a part of me dreaded leaving the palm trees, easy access to family entertainment and mild winters. My family’s next stop had us trading true suburban living for a rural college town in Georgia’s eastern deciduous terrain, where we would experience all four seasons. Rainy springs. Hot, humid summers. Ragweed laden falls. Wet, cold winters.
In my angst, I reached for our mounds of photo albums to remanence about living only an hour’s drive to Cinderella’s castle as well as that place made of bright, colorful bricks. Rifling through pictures of my boys made me even more nostalgic. So, instead of stopping with the Florida albums I continued to peruse page after page until I was filled with emotion as I looked at infant photos of my heartbeats.
Tiny hands and feet. Curly brown hair. Chubby cheeks. Piercing, almond shaped eyes. The boys have changed so much over the years. My youngest son came into the world kicking and screaming, no doctor’s spank necessary. Still loud and rambunctious, he is a kind, caring child. My oldest son is still as quiet as he was when he came into the world—most of the time. He talks about the things he’s passionate about then he goes to do the things he loves. And, like most kids on the autism spectrum he really likeshis things.
When he was younger, we often got the judgment of well-meaning loved ones when he would allow his cousins and friends to play with select toys, coveting certain items so much that he seldom relinquished them. At the time we suspected that he had Asperger’s Syndrome but his official diagnosis was Sensory Processing Disorder. broccoli, a food with an aroma that still to this day causes him to gag.