Florida |

photo 2-1

This past month was Autism Awareness month and as the disease is personal to our family and friends, I was glad to see the efforts of national organizations like Autism Speaks and many local support groups across the country push to educate the public on this issue. Back when Andrew was diagnosed, no one had really heard about autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In fact, I had to seek out information about Asperger’s syndrome on the internet to really piece together what the diagnosis would mean. Over a decade later, the CDC estimates that 1 in 50 children has an ASD. With those statistics, it is critical for organizations like Autism Pensacola in my Florida hometown to get out front and provide information about the disease.

This week Autism Pensacola has partnered with the University of West Florida to host a regional conference in the beautiful city of Pensacola. Flying High with Autism is bringing in speakers like Dr. Temple Grandin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to discuss ASD research and therapy and to provide a forum for sharing the challenges and triumphs of individuals and families living with the diagnosis.

But this post isn’t just about promoting an autism conference. It’s about a connection between our family, our hometown, and our friends.

Andrew, who is now 22, understands his challenges and struggles on a daily basis to calculate his words and actions. He has learned how to communicate with others in a way that we take for granted. After helping him navigate through the brutal (under any circumstances) teen years with this condition, we know just how important awareness is not just for those diagnosed but for those who interact with them.

My incredibly talented friend Evelyn Savage, who is responsible for many of the gorgeous photographs on this blog, is not only a photographer but also an amazing, supportive and brave mother of a child with autism. Her son Laws was diagnosed 6 years ago with an ASD. She has redefined her role as a mother and has devoted her life to giving him the unconditional love, supporting environment and tools he needs to get through every day. You can check out her raw and honest account of raising a child with autism here: A Little Boy Blue (and his hero sister, too).

So it is only fitting that this blog celebrates Andrew, Pensacola and Evelyn. Thank you Andrew for blessing us with your persevering spirit, your kind heart and all the ways you make us smile . Thank you to our friends in Pensacola for caring enough to promote this cause very dear to us and for helping Andrew find his way into adulthood. And thank you Evelyn for capturing in photos what words can’t describe.

The long, cold New England winter has made the first taste of spring all the sweeter. Of course, spring did not come to me. I had to chase it down in Northwest Florida. And that was no easy task. But three cancelled trips, a stomach bug and ear infection later, I am sitting on the back porch listening to the waves crash on the Gulf of Mexico.

Heading home to the panhandle of Florida has not just warmed my body, it’s warmed my soul. I have soaked up every last ray of sunshine and love during this vacation. I’ve missed the slower cadence, laughter with family and friends, sugar-white sands, fresh Gulf seafood, eye-popping azaleas, slamming screen doors and sweet tea. (Thank you Martha Foose for the best cookbook title ever.)

The down-home feel and sense of belonging when I come home is not exclusive to the South. Beachside villages and towns along the Atlantic seaboard from Sag Harbor, L.I. to Bar Harbor, Maine have been calling families back to the New England coast for generations. Clam bakes, oyster roasts and days spent on the water around weathered cottages remind me of days and nights along Gulf Coast beaches like the one that is framed by Highway 30-A.

Southerners have been flocking to South Walton for one hundred years. My own family has been going there now for over three decades. The tradition continues again this year as Kate and Jack celebrate their spring break from school along the same stretch of beach highway their parents did before the first Seaside cottage was built.

I have no doubt that a generation from now, their children will be slamming screen doors, gulping sweet tea and playing in the same snow-white sands.