Have you ever tried to get into something or into somewhere and it just seemed impossible and you knew that deep down there must be a way in? I mean, deep down, there must be a way in. Hi everybody, Michael Crowes here. This is The Daily Grateful.
And I want to talk about my granddaughter, one of my granddaughters. I have two granddaughters, two of my kids, but this one particular granddaughter I met. I did not meet her when she was born. I didn't meet either of any of my grandkids when they were born, but I met this one when she was, I think, about 17, 18 months old.
My daughter had come from Kansas for Thanksgiving and they were staying at my house. And she brought all three of her kids. Now, I had met the oldest one. I knew him quite well, but then she went off again to the Kansas area and had two more.
And a little boy who just lights up my life. And then this granddaughter. Now, this granddaughter had challenges. She had autism.
She has autism. Like I say, 17, 18 months, she was just in love with me and I was in love with her. My daughter brought a girlfriend of hers with her on a trip to help her with the kids because they drove. And as soon as they came in, this young lady takes my little granddaughter and pops her on my lap.
I'm sitting on the sofa. She pops her on my lap. And this girl is laughing at me. My granddaughter is laughing at me.
She's hugging me. She's snuggling with me. I mean, it is wonderful. I didn't know she had autism, but they left after Thanksgiving.
They left. And one of my favorite pictures is they had to leave like at four o'clock or five o'clock in the morning. And they were staying here and I'm in bed sleeping. And the young lady that was helping my daughter walked into my bedroom with my granddaughter and plopped her on the bed next to me.
And I woke up and there was my granddaughter laughing at me like you would not believe. And then she took a picture of it. She took a picture of my grandmother laughing at me. And it's my favorite picture of her ever.
Off they went. And then we didn't see him again for quite a while. Not quite a while. A couple years.
A year. A year and a half. Two years. I'm not sure.
Time just passes weirdly. And when they all came back, it was quite apparent to me and everyone else that there was something different going on here. Because this little girl was four years old when they came back. And she didn't talk.
My oldest grandson was talking up a storm when he was two and a half. He would say, Grandpa, that's a blue car. You know, just incredible talking. And then his little brother wasn't talking very much either.
And he's like five years old and still not talking. Some. Some. But not much.
They were both delayed. What is the simple definition of autism? According to the Google thing over here, Autism, or the Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communications. Yeah, that kind of sums it up.
And there's a spectrum. And it's a big spectrum. Okay? Big, big, big, big spectrum.
Well, my granddaughter comes back and she's totally nonverbal. And she's now living here. They moved back. They came back forever.
You know, and they... Well, forever is a long time. But anyway, they came back. And my granddaughter's just not talking.
And she would not give me direct eye contact. And she was terrified of me. She was terrified of most men. Don't know why.
I got some theories. But through all of this, we kind of developed a relationship. And the relationship was... Well, I'm going to tell you.
I was watching TikTok. And I learned something on TikTok. Somebody on TikTok said, When you have a child that you're close to, put your hand out and see what they do. So I would put my hand out to her.
You know, it's on TikTok. It absolutely must be true. And I would put my hand out. And she would look at me oddly.
Or she wouldn't look at me, but she would kind of stare oddly. And then eventually she came over. And she's putting her hand in my hand. This was our form of communication.
By the way, totally nonverbal. This girl had me wrapped around her little finger. She wanted something. She knew how to get it from me.
And the way she would communicate, she would come and she would grab my hand. And she would take me to wherever she wanted to do was happening. Like if she wanted to watch television, she would come over and hand me the remote. And I would turn on the TV.
And then there's this big menu of things, of shows, you know, to be on television. And then she would grab my hand. And she would walk me over to the TV. And I'm supposed to scroll through all these things.
And she would find what she wanted, which was usually a certain Disney movie. And then she would point at it. And then I would play it for her. One time she was over here.
And she went on the dining room table. I'm sitting on the sofa again. And she goes over to the dining room table. And she picks up a box of microwave popcorn.
And she hands it to me. I said, well, thank you, dear. And I'm sitting there watching TV or whatever I was doing. And she's looking at me like I'm an idiot.
And she takes it out of my hand and puts it into my other hand. And I'm saying, yeah, thank you, dear. And she's again looking at me like I'm an idiot. She finally grabs my hand.
I've got the box of popcorn in my hand. She walks me out into the kitchen where there's a microwave. And she's looking at the microwave and looking at the popcorn. I said, oh, you want popcorn?
She loves popcorn, by the way. So, you know, I would make a popcorn. And through all of this, there was a lot of times where we just, we struggled. But I wanted in.
I wanted to get into this incredible brain of hers. I just wanted a way in. And I know nothing about autism. I know absolutely not a damn thing.
I help, you know, my oldest son is a Down syndrome person. He's 43 years old. If you met anybody who knows him, anybody who's listening to this who knows him, knows what an incredible person he is. And when that kid was born 43 years ago, I learned everything in the world there was to know about Down syndrome.
I probably knew more than most doctors did. So did his mother. But autism, you know, I just don't know about it. I just know that there's something in there and that I need to be able to figure out a way in so that I can have a relationship with my granddaughter.
And some of the relationship, you know, would be that my daughter would bring her over. They would come over in the car and they wouldn't come in. But she would come over. My daughter would want something from her.
I would go out and I would go out to the car and I would, my granddaughter would sit behind my daughter. My daughter's in the driver's seat and she's in her car seat behind her. And I would reach behind my daughter and I would put my hand out and she would reluctantly take my hand. And, you know, and then one day I remember that this was, this was kind of cool.
One day I'm out there just talking to my daughter about something and she's in the back. And the next thing I know, she's reaching her hand out to me like, hey, idiot, you're supposed to, you know, oh, okay. And then once in a blue moon, I would get something totally unique from her and that would be direct eye contact. She would give me a gift of direct eye contact.
After we would spend a lot of time together, she would give me direct eye contact for just a few seconds. And that was such a surprise for me. It was something that I love so much. And I continued to struggle with this whole thing.
Well, my daughter started taking her to speech therapy. You know, the girl's got to talk. She's now eight years old. And well, she was seven years old.
She just turned eight. She's seven years old and she's still not talking. And this is, you know, so through John Hopkins, my daughter's taking her four days a week to speech therapy and they're learning. And it gets to where, you know, there are words coming out.
She would say bye-bye. Well, now she will say hi and she will say a few words. And then they came across something that I didn't realize. And my daughter was here the other day with the kids and they're all around the backyard.
And I have a swing set out there for them. And she comes up and she's sitting on my daughter's lap and I'm sitting in a chair, I'd say about eight, eight feet away from her. And she said, you know, we're getting her to communicate with sign language. We're using sign language, but making her say the words.
So I said, okay. And I learned how to say I've, I pointed to my eye and then put my hands out want. And then I put out the thing, a hug. I've not had a hug from my granddaughter since she was 17 months old.
I've not had a hug from her at all. But I signed, I want a hug. She climbs off of my daughter's lap and she walks over eight feet to me and she has her arms out and she wraps her arms around me and she gave me a hug. It was a way in.
Finally, it was a way in there. And, and all of this time, you know, for the past years, when I've been trying to get in there and when I would settle for just touching her hand or I would settle for her saying, looking at me and saying, bye, or, you know, or, or once in a while, the great gift of direct eye contact, finding this tool, it was a way in. I got my first hug from my granddaughter. I'm so grateful.
So damn grateful. Talk to y'all tomorrow. Talk to y'all tomorrow. Talk to y'all tomorrow.
Talk to y'all tomorrow. Talk to y'all tomorrow.