The Gift

It is the picture perfect Christmas morning scene. The house is all quiet, the Christmas tree is beautifully lit. The room is dim with the lights on the tree and the smell of cinnamon in the air. Santa has been by already and you are just waiting for the first pitter patters of feet to come into the room and be amazed at the sight of presents and family. Wait! What? That has never happened in my house!

Christmas morning usually consist of me, the mom, waking up the kids and making them come into the room. The fireplace is lit, by the switch on the wall, and there are grumblings of being too cold or hot. Coffee is the only smell in the air because that is all that can be made at the moment. Having a child with ASD complicates matters even more. Often, I have to drag him out of bed because he is a night owl who has no sense of time management and has been up most of the night. He really could care less about getting dressed or waiting for others to receive gifts. He just wants the newest game and to start playing it. It is a picture perfect moment; I say with sarcasm.

As time has passed over the years I have realized that I only need to open a special box on Christmas. It doesn’t matter what is going on in the room but who is in the room. The box I love to open every year is very plain and not really wrapped at all. It is a special gift from my son that no one else can give me. I slowly open this box, almost so slow it is painful. As a matter of fact, it takes me a whole year to open. As I open it, I begin to cry for the disappointments that have happened and the pride I feel and I laugh at the same time. Inside this box are very simple treasures of little material importance but of huge value to me. Slowly, I take out HOPE, that it will be ok one day. I live with that hope each day. Then, LOVE, that despite not showing it very often, and he really does love me and all I do for him. The best part of the box is all of the little things at the bottom of the box. They are all the ACCOMPLISHMENTS, so small that most would forget or just