Thank You, Diane
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum
By Alison Dyer

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
~G. K. Chesterton

Sometimes people save you. You know the ones I am talking about; they swoop in and pull you off the tracks. That happened for my family in 1990. The change came in a bright, loving, energetic package. My brother Jeff was five, embarking on his educational path, and an angel came to guide him. That angel was Diane.

To say Jeff was a handful is an understatement. Programs and services didn’t exist the way they do now. Jeff was attending a Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) school where the population was diverse. It would be unfair to say that his learning was stunted, but options were limited. There were people who loved and cared about him there and he was safe, but the weekly phone call that “Jeff drank the water in the swimming pool” was growing old. Quite frankly that was the least of our worries — at home we were dealing with no sleep, smashing VCRs and other electronics out of frustration, bathroom issues, etc. We were just working to get through each day. (Keep reading)