I was getting ready to leave for work early one day when I heard my son’s bedroom door open. He stumbled down the stairs, his eyes half-open, his hair all messy, and stopped in front of me.
“What are you doing up so early, bud?” I asked. He had no classes that day.
“I wanted to make sure I said goodbye to you before I went away for the weekend,” he replied, and then he hugged me tight. “Love you,” he said.
“Love you too,” I said, then I watched him stumble back up the stairs and heard his door shut and him fall back into bed. 
What kind of teenager does stuff like that?
Mine does.
In the past year, I have watched my boy become a man. He graduated high school, started driving, started college. He started doing some food shopping and making dinner. When he’s home alone he’ll make all the beds and do the laundry.
He even started picking up his sister from school and driving her home or to her dad’s house in the next state. He takes himself to get haircuts, or pick up school supplies, or to meet his friends at the movies. He brings his car in for oil changes. On his days off, he drives himself over to his grandma’s house to help her around the house.
Day after day, he blows me away. He is living, walking, driving proof that I raised him right.
Just this past week, he got his first part-time job. It took him a while, and at times I wondered if the job rejections were because of his Asperger’s. But I knew that any employer who was not dying to hire this kid, who didn’t immediately see all the amazing in him, was not the right boss for him.
I told him to stop worrying, he didn’t have to get a job. But I knew how bad he wanted one and I knew it would be good for him. So I urged him to keep applying.
As I was helping him fill out a job application one day online, a question popped up about whether he had a disability. He waited for me to tell him how to answer the question. “You’re an adult, bud. I’m not answering the question. Do you have a disability?”
“Well,” he said. “I know people think Asperger’s is a disability but that’s not how I see it. I see it as an ability.”
“There’s your answer,’ buddy” I said, and watched as he checked off no.
Before my eyes. I stared at this kid who had become everything I had hoped he would at 18.
Yes, he may be “different.” Yeah, he needs extra help in school and he needs instructions repeated a few times. He’s a little too anxious and sometimes he talks a little too much.
He’s also incredibly sweet and loving, super friendly, extremely polite, immensely sensitive. He shakes stranger’s hands and holds the door open for them. He calls & texts his family members more than I do. He tells me he loves me a dozen times a day.
My son is an incredible guitarist who can hear a song one minute and play it the next. He studies his favorite bands to the point that he knows the year of every song and the full biography of every band member.
He may not have been in the “popular” group in high school, he may not have played sports. But with time, he learned to be OK with who he is. He learned to be more than OK with who he is. And he is incredible.
He found friends who are an eclectic bunch, who don’t judge each other or others. He joined a rock band that appreciates how unique and talented he is. He continues to make friends at college, and I’m sure he’ll make even more at his new job.
And he understands, as I always hoped he would, that if someone doesn’t want to be his friend, then they are not a friend worth having. That’s a lesson he gets at 18 — that’s something that took me most of my life to figure out.
The other day he was doing some personality quiz on social media and it asked him, would you rather be weird or normal? “Think about it, bud. What would you rather be?” I asked.
“I’d rather be different, weird,” he said. “I don’t want to be like everyone else.”
My kid was born to stand out. And he does.
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