A Fork Amongst the Spoons: Autism and Independence

The future can be a scary place for a parent with an autistic child. It looms there on the horizon, storm clouds of questions that never quite seem to break.Will our son finish school? Where do we find teachers who can help? Will he find a job? Can he live on his own?Raising a child with autism is a sea full of questions.A Fork Amongst the Spoonsbegins with Ian about to enter middle school. A school full of kids who have never encountered someone on the autistic spectrum. Hank Smith and his wife, Michelle, try to put their fears aside. Father and son, mother and child, those roles slowly change as Ian begins to find his own way, to learn to walk his own path.And so, the days turn to weeks, the weeks to months, and the months to years. Ian’s steps grow more confident and sure, as he learns about this ‘normal’ world and how to navigate his way through it . . . a fork amongst the spoons.As the years pass, Hank and Michelle’s questions begin to drop away until finally only one remains. It holds the future, not just a future of days and weeks, but one of years, of decades . . . a question that carries a taste of rain.What will happen to our son when we’re gone? Picturing a future they will never see, a life they will never be a part of . . . the storm is here. Read more