Little by little she began to open to those around her. It wasn't an easy process to get her to speak up more and be more open in conversations. Min was born with autism. Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behaviour. Growing up with Min wasn't an easy process for her parents. Trying to get Min out of her repetitive behaviour was a painful process.
By the time Min was three years of age, she still couldn't speak and she couldn't let go of her bolster wherever she went. There was one thing in particular Min was really good at - puzzles. She instinctively knew what piece went where and in what position. She had this innate ability to simply put the puzzle together.
Autistic or not, her parents knew for a fact that Min had a talent - a talent for solving puzzles. It may not be a massive achievement for most parents but to Min's parents, it was something to be proud of their daughter who is typically deemed a handicap by the general public.
Living with an autistic child posed many problems - facing random tantrums from Min, occasional self-injurious actions, difficult to change routines. These are some of the complications Min's parents had to go through but they went through it painstakingly in the hope to give Min a better chance at life. Even Min wouldn't grow up to be a normal kid, being close-to-normal was more than good enough for them.
They continued to believe that Min will grow stronger and they continued to provide anything possible to help Min's growth.
Three years down the road, Min had a little brother come along the way. Min is now six years of age, able to talk albeit she still struggles with learning and still amazingly good with puzzles.
With little Matt joining the family, a different side of Min proliferated. Min showed a side never before seen by her parents. She had complete instinct of an elder sibling to watch over Matt.
Min demonstrated many times when she could tell if Matt was unwell and had a very 'Min way' at tugging at her mother's sleeve to tell her that something wasn't right with Matt. Other times, she instinctively tags along little Matt who sometimes can get himself in litte trouble like the one time he nearly fell of the staircase while crawling about the top floor of their home.
It was simply conspicuous in Min that she was more than capable of caring for her little brother but it was a trait not common in a child diagnosed with autism. It was surprising to her parents but over and above that, they couldn't be more proud of Min.
Sometimes, there are things that some people are capable of but simply not shown, either simply because the opportunity never arises or it requires some form of catalyst to materialise. At the end of the day, it's like many of us out there who have capabilities hidden in ourselves that we are probably not aware of until it unleashes itself when the time is ripe..........
All it takes is probably for us to believe in ourselves, just like how Min's parents never stopped believing in Min.
Comments
Post a Comment