What an awesome thing for parents to be able to say! (And how difficult it is at times.) Juxtaposed to the Benoit tragedy in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution was a heart-warming story about a young man with autism who graduated from our local high school…with a regular education diploma no less.

Not too many lines in and you realize that this child is not only autistic, but he was adopted from El Salvador at age 2. Now the article really has my attention. I quickly emailed the report and hope to be able to actually speak with these awesome parents.

We have much in common. Their son is the youngest of their 4 children (and only one adopted I’m inferring from the way the article is written). Just like us! The article alludes to the struggles they had early on making rounds to specialists and looking for answers. Just like us! In the fifth grade (grade LuLu is now) he was diagnosed with autism.

What the article doesn’t say is what happened next…what the family did with this diagnosis, what the school did with it, and what interventions helped. What it does say that soon after the diagnosis he began to make progress. Then, he was connected with a caring special ed teacher who opened doors for him in high school. And through some scheduling changes ended up not being dead-ended with a special ed diploma, but instead given a chance to earn a regular ed diploma.

Reading between the lines of this story into these people’s lives leaves me with so many questions. They are living right here…in my school district.

But one question I won’t need to ask is how it feels to have searched for so long, worked so hard, prayed continuously and then…finally to be able to watch their son graduate. I can easily imagine how proud and relieved and exhausted they must feel. A feeling, a miracle and a milestone that I can still only dream of.