You Can't Do This Alone

(The following is an excerpt from a talk the late Feda Almaliti gave at an Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area conference held at Stanford University in 2017. Feda passed away in September 2020 in a house fire as she tried to save her severely autistic son Muhammed.)

Anger has a vulnerable underbelly. 

The purpose of my anger was obvious to me, but for the longest time I couldn’t figure out the purpose of my sadness. And then it became clear. Sadness is glue — it bonds us together. When I look at another mom and sense her pain, I can’t turn my back, I can’t just walk away. I HAVE to stay. I have to listen. I have to be with her. And when she feels she can’t go on, I have to light the spark in her and keep her fighting, and keep myself fighting too.

There is no way I could have done any of this alone. Every single step of the way I had the support of my fellow autism parents. They cried with me, they laughed with me. I’ve even had one break into my house to check on me when I didn’t pick up the phone for a week.

You see, being together in the sadness of Autism is doable. Being alone in the sadness of Autism is not. Being together in battle is doable. Being alone in battle is not.

There’s a saying that if Muhammed cannot go to the mountain then the mountain must come to Muhammed. Well in essence that is true for ALL of our children.