Autism can’t tear twin brothers apart – St. Petersburg Times.
I read this and started crying. I don’t know if everyone will/would, but stories like this always make me cry. I always see myself in them. I think all siblings of special needs children are like this (or I’ve never met one who wasn’t). It’s almost the same as a parent/child relationship, but it’s different too. I would have given my arm for my sister to be normal. I would have done anything. I used to tell my gram to rub her legs, so she could walk. I wanted to be a therapist when I grew up. I took care of her, I loved her, and I defended her to strangers all the time. A pierce of me died when she did, and it’s a piece I notice missing all the time. A huge piece of her grew in me, and I know it’s there every day when I interact with my own children.
I feel for this little boy. He has no idea. His entire life is already different from his peers, and it isn’t better and it isn’t worse, but it is most definitely different. He will grow up knowing things that I wish we could instill in every child in the world. He will grow up a little faster, perhaps he already has, and he will grow up a little slower, because that’s just how it is. I wish him and his brother the very best.
