Just For Today

Just For Today
Just for today, little one, I'm going to forget that you're autisticAnd remember that you're a child. For this brief shining time, I will only see the beauty of you and your world.

I will marvel at the spun gold of your hair in the sunlight. How can anything be so impossibly brilliant? I will see the blue-green of your infinite eyesAnd not worry if they focus on me. I will admire your concentrationAnd not mind that it isn't directed in the usual way.

Your smile and laugh will bring me joy. It won't matter what caused them, they are marvels unto themselves. Through your eyes I will delve into the unseen, Looking at the world with that perspective unique to you.

I will see your lines of leaves and stonesAnd share your happiness at their precision. I will close my own eyesAnd let the textures you explore overwhelm my senses. Spinning in circles with you, I will let go until all is lost but the dizzy.

Just for today, I will close my books and ignore the research, the worry, the 'shoulds' and the shadowy future. You are my baby, my son, my love. Today, we play.

Written by Delia Thompson