what is a celebration?

What does a celebration or a holiday or a festival mean? well, we all have our own meaning and purpose to celebrate something, in my home this picture defined the holiday.

Everyone in Autism world knows what holiday and vacations are for us. Family time or celebration or festivities, no, not much of that. For us it means unstructured life and that leads to lot of heartache and meltdowns. And yes sometimes the celebration, family time and happiness comes around.

So this was vacation week and we all were home, No trip or big plans. We thought we will take one day at a time. We decided to introduced cooking and it didn’t go very well in the beginning but later it was much better. We worked on Homework and missing assignments and that absolutely was a disaster. But that’s how “introducing” and “anything new” works in our life. Offcourse dinner out at a favorite restaurant works well as a bribe.

So it was a week of having all the boys home. Too many hours spent together and it leads to meltdowns, not only for Anand, for all of us in different forms.

Ajey is home and I feel for him. The age difference is not 3 yrs, it never was but now it is way beyond years. My heart aches for both of my boys. They could have the best years of their lives together and have fun but it is not possible anymore. Seeing him struggle is one my biggest failure as a mother. I just don’t know how to console that kid. But anyway, after we had been through a storm we talked. we talked how to find, enjoy and celebrate those very few connected dots. The next morning, I saw this, brothers playing chess and my heart swelled with happiness and pride. Anand beat Ajey in all the games.

For me this picture defines what new year means to us. It was the morning of Dec 31^st. I would like to remember the last day of the year. Just like that, life made so much sense.

Wish you all a very happy New Year. I hope it brings a new morning and changes many things in your life.