Do you know what I don't know enough about and I need to know enough about it? Autism and I need to be grateful for that. Let's talk about it So long about I don't know 44 years ago or so The first mrs. Gross and I gave birth to our son Tyler Tyler is an incredible young man And he's still a young man, even though he's now 43 44 years old He has Down syndrome.
Yeah, I was right there when he was birthed and something didn't look exactly right and Midwives looked at each other and said slanted eyes and to one another and I just said, hmm something right but anyway It was about an hour and a half later that the pediatrician came in to see us to tell us that our little boy had Down syndrome and I said oh, I don't know anything about 10 down syndrome. I know absolutely nothing about Down syndrome Didn't know any Down syndrome people Didn't know what caused it didn't know did I do it? You know what what? I knew nothing I knew I had this really awesome little baby who just absolutely loved me And just absolutely was thrilled that I was his dad and the Michelle was his mommy I mean, you know just what a cool-ass kid But that began a journey a very quick journey by the way a very intense journey because I figured I got me a Down syndrome person here that lives with us now I think I need to know everything in the world about Down syndrome I need to know more about Down syndrome than a pediatrician who wonderful man by the way Who came and told us that Tyler was Downs?
I need to know so much that it makes my eyeballs hurt so In those days there wasn't an internet, but there was a Clearwater Public Library And I just started consuming stuff about Down syndrome and we had Tyler in a place called UPark And it was just a fantastic early intervention Stimulation program from the time he was I don't know five days old he started doing that on a regular basis And we learned that stimulation was some of the best things that you could do for a Downs person And the people there just taught me so much his teacher mama Joe All of these people just taught me so much about Down syndrome and I started learning as a matter of fact This is how Devoted I was I hosted an international forum in Clearwater With a doctor from Germany who was a specialist in stem cell treatments for Down syndrome in Germany that were not available in the United States And I we brought him over from you know and just put on this this little thing Our church was nice enough to let us use the room big room because we had a lot of people from all over who showed up at this thing So it's a good thing. We had a good sized room, but yeah, I learned all about that And I've gone four minutes talking about how much I know about Downsies By the way Downsies are my fun name that I got from a woman who had a Down syndrome child that we knew And she just came up with that term. This is my little Downcy and I loved it I absolutely loved it. And now when I run into people who have Down syndrome people and their family I say would you like to see a picture of my Downs?
It's it's just that cool But then there's this thing called autism. I don't know nothing about no autism, but guess what? I got a granddaughter and a grandson who have autism And I don't know anything about it now. I will tell you that my grandson Has and I hate to even say this He has a and I hate to say that this is a term because I'm sure it's not a term a milder form of autism Compared to his little sister who is nonverbal But it has me totally wrap around her fingers and can get me to do anything on earth war and she knows that too But um both of them are especially extremely autistic and I don't know anything about it Ah I think I need a lot of gratitude though Because you know what you have here's here's what I know so far about autism.
I don't know what causes it I don't know it's not vaccines. Uh, I don't know, you know, I don't know if it's genetic I don't know any of it, but I know that we make little tiny advances That's what we make little tiny advances, especially with my granddaughter And I am so grateful for every little tiny advance we make With me and her what I consider a major victory Is eye contact where she will give me right direct in my eye eye contact and smile at me And you know she's talking a little bit more now. She goes to speech therapy a couple of times a week And when they drive up, I'll go out to the car and she'll look at me and she'll say hi You know And we have this little thing where I put my hand out and she puts our shield but her hand out And we hold hands and we just sit and smile at each other and laugh and giggle and I tell her how pretty she is But little things, you know how long it took to get to where we could do that I mean a very very very long time And there are support systems out there that I don't know about but I'm grateful for them My daughter's taking advantage of many of them And like I say so much to learn And Here's here's something that I know That I didn't know when I knew it but I know it now A long time ago There was a hairdresser that we knew Who had a daughter And the daughter Obviously Is autistic I did not know it then I knew that she could not talk or not talk much I just very little bit and that she struggled with everything Lost track with them all don't know where they are but that little daughter is I don't know 35 years old now I want to know where she's at and what she's doing and how well she's doing it I just really want to do that So I need to call the mom except I forgot the mom's name Isn't that terrible? She's got my hair but I forgot her name And just just cool people I fixed her up with a guy that worked for me once and they dated for a while I just now remembered her name.
Oh, isn't that right? I should write that down because I'm old I'm writing that down. Okay. Good.
You could hear me do that. Couldn't you? Anyway, I'm very grateful for all that I'm learning I'm very grateful for the people who are sharing things with me about this Because like I said I need to know a lot my daughter knows a lot But she needs to know a lot more She'll tell you that and I need to know a lot more because I got these little grandkids that I just love Now my grandson is doing remarkably well He's creative. He's artistic.
I give him I give him drawing paper and he draws beautiful pictures And he talks to me and we have wonderful conversations. My granddaughter A work in progress gotta love her so much I think it's just important to be very very very mindful In the mirror And exact I'll see you tomorrow