Before the "A" Word

Yesterday I cleaned out a wardrobe/chest of drawers that has been part of our bedroom set for 40 years.

Some things I found:

1. A vintage Barbie doll (brunette) hermetically sealed in a wrinkled Safeway bag (kept it, she was still wearing clothes that I made for her out of my mother’s fabric scraps)
2. Books, so many books -- novels, textbooks, journals, how-tos -- mostly read (kept them, re-stacked them, I don’t discard the written word)
3. Multiple sets of PJs from the 1990s (tossed ‘em all -- hideous)
4. Legwarmers from the 1980s (tossed them, too)
5. Unisex running shorts from the 1970s (tossed, for sure… think Chrissie and Janet from “Three’s Company”)
6. A six-foot long hand-crocheted scarf from the 1960s (kept it, Dut made it for me)
7. Love letters from Joe, written to me when I lived in Kansas City in 1975 (of course, kept them, after reading a few through tears and laughter)
8. An old Christmas card that I sketched when Joey was approaching his two year birthday  

The drawing made me remember what life was like before autism.  Life when my first-born held the same potential as other children.  Life before the world turned itself upside down and brought me to the unexpected path that has become eerily familiar in its unpredictability.  Not that it has been a terrible path all of the time.  There has been much good, too.  There have been many golden experiences that I would not have had if things had moved along the road that I envisioned on the day that I drew this picture.

Not complaining; just pondering life.

Christmas card 1984.   Both Joey and Skippy were around two years old.