As you know in November of 2011 my board voted unanimously
to call April in Northern Virginia Autism Acceptance Month at my suggestion,
awareness is not enough.
For our first celebration in April 2012 I made a sign for my
front yard that stated “April is Autism Acceptance Month”, I decorated it with
flowers, waterproofed it, taped it to an old yard sign and placed it in a
flowerbed facing the street, every year since then it has spent the whole of
April cheerily sharing my message with passersby that was until last
evening.
I was headed out to church when I noticed it lying on the
front walk sans yard sign, I assumed that it had somehow come unstuck, the best
case scenario I could dream up knowing full well I had made sure to tape it
securely with duct tape to the yard sign.
After closer investigation I discovered that it had been cut off the
yard sign and then tossed onto our front walk.
The covering had been slashed.
Fortunately the sign within had not been damaged. I was angered and close to having a
meltdown. I quickly gathered it up and
ran back into my house, I was fuming. I
showed it to my mother who was surprised that the sign had been attacked, but
fortunately my mother knew the right thing to say to keep me from fully melting
down, so off to church I went.
While I was at church she had been looking at the sign and
noticed that the lettering had started to fade due to two Aprils worth of
sunlight, she therefore suggested that I should touch up the letters and make
it better than it was. I in turn told
her that I had concluded during church that the individual who had committed
the act did not know what Acceptance was and that I would put my sign up again,
showing the world that Acceptance cannot be so easily defeated. It is now freshly re-erected.
I am Autistic and Proud and no one can take that away from
me!
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