Sustained by my peer parents, we have made through and have a wonderful girl joining us on Monday. Benefitting from a concerted effort to rally around me – dispelling my self-doubt, banishing my guilt, pointing to the opportunity for a positive change – was awesome. People can simply be…yes, awesome.

She kindly explains: “Lauren said this is a way of saying a curse word. Is it?” My eyes rolled back in their sockets and saw two words branded into my brain matter: A curse word and “Lauren.”

With eyes back in place and focused on the pink-polished finger, I somehow resisted the need to speak in tongues. I calmly uttered, “Lauren really shouldn’t show you something like that. Please don’t listen to everything she says. Now, hop in the bath.”

I am mad.  I am sad. I’m mad at Lauren. I’m sad for my little one.

I want to call the mother of Little Miss Show and Tell and ask her to teach her child to keep her fingers to herself. I’m just not sure I have the nerve to open up that Pandora’s Box.

Why is naiveté so short-lived?

“How Will I Know?” takes me immediately back to the summer we donned colorful make-up and scarves in our hair, popping back and forth trying to string together, “How will I know if he’s thinking of me? I try to phone but I’m too shy (can’t speak).” Pitch perfect, regrettably not.

My most painful break-up was accompanied by “I Will Always Love You.” Whitney sang, “So, goodbye. Please, don’t cry. We both know I’m not what you, you need.”

He said, “So, goodbye. Please don’t cry, again. I know you are not what I need.”

Music memories are inescapable.

It is unlikely you don’t know a family challenged by autism today.

It is also unlikely you don’t know a family not advocating on behalf of their autistic child and loving that child unconditionally while working through the day-to-day challenges of autism.

People like Tony Humphreys are shameless self-promoters. Perhaps his parents were cold toward him.