“At the start of our journey with David, it was also my 40th birthday. I was told by my doctors that I would “never have children.” They, on the other hand, were wrong. And that was the start of David’s amazing life!
The first few years of David’s life were full of wonderful things. He did everything he set out to do and was the only child who was spoiled to death. Between the ages of three and four, things changed in a big way. We saw that our most important child was falling behind. His speech, which had been a bit limited before, was now completely free and his ability to do things that required fine motor control got so bad that it couldn’t be fixed. His walk, which was usually easy, became laborious.
We went to several doctors, and each one told us to just “wait it out.” We were told over and over that men don’t reach their full potential until they are older. That he was an only child and would talk more about it later. But this didn’t explain why his skills were getting worse. In fact, they didn’t believe that he had all of these skills at one time and then lost them.
Six different doctors had to look at the boy before we could say for sure that he had autism with severe regression. Over the next few years, a lot of people graduated from medical school. Specialists. Therapists. There are many people who can help you. We tried just about everything we could think of, but nothing worked. The doctors decided that David did not respond to their treatment. He was also found to have severe immunodeficiency, which meant that his body couldn’t protect itself against cancer and other diseases. He would only be able to do homeschool.
When he was nine, things only got worse. David began to have seizures, which made things even worse. David’s illness kept him from leaving his house, so he would never have any friends of his own. He never got together with other kids his age to celebrate his birthday. His chances of getting out of the house were very limited. I knew that David felt alone, even though he was very loved and his parents’ best friend.
After she had a stroke, his grandmother moved in with us in her later years. She was a close friend of his. In the year 2017, she died in the month of December. Even though this happened, David stayed a very loving and innocent child who was worth a lot. We prayed for him all the time. That David would be able to find the friends he was looking for in some way.
The years went by. In life, things change. He turned 21. David walked up to me with a puzzled look on his face one day as I was relaxing in our living room. Now, keep in mind that he has never been able to talk and has always communicated without words. I could see how hard it was for him. Then he started to talk.
When the phrase was said, it was in the form of a question. He looked at me and asked, “Could someone like me?” I was completely moved to tears. I logged in to my Twitter account. I only had a few people following me, and most of them were other parents, and I never in a million years would have thought that this simple tweet would get so much attention.
The number of alerts on my phone was too much to handle. Buzzfeed and the BBC called me and said they wanted me to write an article about the tweet about David that went viral. They had to show me that, in this situation, going viral was actually a good thing. I had no idea.
Since then, people from all over the world have sent David their love and well wishes. The thoughtful gifts that friends give. Invitations to travel. There were cards and letters coming in every day. Helpful, too, were the good wishes that people posted on my Twitter page. I read each one to David as I went through them. Then, I would ask, “Do you want me to reply and thank them?” I tried to explain to him that it would take a while. David doesn’t care. As far as David is concerned, everyone is important to him. No one gets left out.
Even now, the messages are still being sent. David turned out to be a very unique child because he was loved so much. We don’t know what to say, and we know we’ll never be able to say enough to show how grateful we are to everyone who has helped us. David is going to try it, though. He does not like the idea of leaving anyone out. He loves each of us and thinks we are all important.
As his mother, I learned that there are so many amazing and loving people in the world. I also learned that David is just like a lot of other kids. Alone. Alone and having trouble. If you know anyone who is like David, please reach out to them. A small act of kindness can mean a lot to our kids and give them the push they need to keep going when things are hard. As a mother, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for loving my most precious child.
All of our wonderful children deserve to be loved this much. God bless you all!”
