Mom and I go grocery shopping, to basketball and hockey games, on walks with our dogs, sometimes to Toronto by air for the Autism Symposium, school and major theatre musicals (by “major” I mean the Toronto musicals The Lion King and Mamma Mia), sometimes movie theatres, and other fun things.
She helps me make good choices, like as a child, she helped me with the big fixations by teaching me how to control them with help from teachers and Teachers Assistants. When I was in school she was present for every choir concert, band concert, coffee house, variety show, and graduation. When grocery shopping I would help her by going to a certain aisle for a certain item for her and carrying the bags in when we got home. These days when I go home for a weekend or celebration or summer holiday Mom and I constantly play Take 2 and Scrabble and I school her big time most times!
When I met Mom the first day she and Erin picked me up to go to their house I thought she was fun to be with, just like with the rest of the family. Mom means a lot to me because of the things we do and did together and the things she did for me, like work out the odd trip, buy me and help me buy Christmas and birthday gifts without the recipients getting an early peek through the almost-see-through plastic bags, researching L’Arche Saint John so I could move here, taking me to restaurants now and then both home and away, and being present for every school concert, play and graduation, most church concerts while I was in the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Holy Family churches, and most Epiphany plays in Saint John.