To the Family and Friends Who Offer Support as I Parent Kids With Disabilities

Dear Friend,

Thank you.

Thank you for accepting me as the hurting and flawed human that I am.

Thank you for not making me feel like a social pariah or treating me like I’m cursed because I have disabled children.

Thank you for offering help without making me have to beg you for it.

Thank you for not making everything a comparison contest.

Thank you for finding my family worth your time.

Thank you for treating me like a person like anyone else, with regular hopes and dreams.

Thank you for letting me cry on your shoulder.

Thank you for being willing to defend me when I am not around to stand up for myself.

Thank you for not being mean to my children.

Thank you for making me laugh!

Thank you for calling me to talk about the day and what’s on your mind — it’s nice not to always talk about me.

Thank you for just stopping by because you were in the neighborhood.

Thank you for the meals you prepared and dropped off for my family while my son was in the hospital.

Thank you for always wanting to assist us in any way that you can.

Thank you for not being afraid of our circumstances and for supporting my son and spreading spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) awareness every chance you get.

Thank you for seeing a need and then silently meeting that need.

Thank you for not mocking or minimizing my fears.

Thank you for not writing me off just because we had a disagreement.

Thank you for making allowances for my hectic appointment schedule, even when it’s not always convenient for you to do so.

Thank you for all your prayers and for not trying to pray my daughter’s autism away. Your prayers only ever made my kids and I feel loved and cared for.

Thank you for inviting me out to dinner, to the movies, to the salon to get our nails done, etc. I couldn’t always accept the invites, but I always appreciated the offers and that you never stopped making them.

Thank you for being willing to listen to me rant and rave about the things that make me mad or the wild things going on in my life.

Thank you for visiting my son while he was admitted to the hospital.

Thank you for the donations and “love offerings” when my husband and I were fundraising for a wheelchair-accessible van.

Thank you for making sacrifices of your own to help my family out.

Thank you for every thoughtful word, look, gesture, gift, etc.  They didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated.

“Thank you” could never convey the depth of my love or the magnitude of the gratitude that I feel for you, but please know that I am honored to have someone like you in my life, and I thank God for all the people that I can call “friend.”