Valentines Day: Appreciating Loved Ones With Autism

Valentine's Day is a nice opportunity to sit back and reflect on the positive aspects of autism and the autistic people in your life (especially if that person with autism is you!). Whether you're the parent, grandparent, teacher or lover of a person on the autism spectrum - or you're appreciating your own best attributes - there's plenty of good to go around.

To start with, I'd like to share a few of the "Valentines" already collected in A Gift to the Autism Community, now a collection of more than 150 tributes to loved ones on the autism spectrum. As always, please feel free to add your own tributes (if you choose to include a photo, please send it direct to autism.guide@about.com as a .gif).

My son Aaron, 5 years old, is, to me, the true meaning of unconditional love. He expects nothing and tells me so much without uttering one word. His eyes are his voice. He has the most beautiful smile with the cutest dimples right around the corners of his nose. The best part of my day is when I pick him up from school and I walk into his class and he looks at me and tells me he loves me with his eyes and his smile. He holds my hand all the way to the car and gives me a kiss once I put him in his carseat. He is my whole world. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if he were not in it.

Melissa Perez

I have two children on the spectrum. Sean is 8 and has Aspergers and Cole is 7 and has autism. I love that life is never boring. I wasn’t meant to have a normal life…but really who wants normal. I have two wonderful children who force their Dad and I to view the world in a way that we might never have viewed it if they were not in our lives. So Thank You Sean and Cole for being who you are. My wonderful, never boring, exciting little boys who keep me on my toes every moment.

Cari Herber

In addition to stories and tributes on this site, there are some wonderful Valentines out there on the Web. One of the best places to find or create a Valentine for that special parent or child is on specialchildren.about.com. Special Parenting Guide Teri Mauro shares over a dozen terrific Valentine ideas for special kids, parents and families. Be sure to check out Teri's Love Notes for Special Parents Gallery: it's a collection of printable, frameable appreciations for parents who knock themselves out all year round to make life better for a special needs child.

Would you like to share an appreciation? If so, please post right here! In particular, I'd like to extend an invitation for folks to write about the adult with autism in their lives. What makes them great, special, interesting, talented, loveable?