Stories for 100 Days of Writing

Independence

It’s the hardest thing to watch, a child leaving home for the first time, every parent has to face it. It starts when they are very young when you leave them for the first time as a baby, or they go to nursery or school. However, although these are difficult they are small compared to the time that they leave home to live their own lives.

For Ann and David, this was a special day, it was Samuel’s turn to leave, their youngest, they’d already seen Dylan and Tanya married, and Daniel was set up in a flat on the other side of town. For the couple this was not just that they would be left with no children at home, it was a day that they didn’t expect to see.

Samuel was born as normal but Ann gradually noticed that things weren’t right, he didn’t reach his milestones, not walking until he was almost two, his speech not even starting until he was three. He had been wilful, difficult to handle, yet surprisingly bright, especially in certain fields. He had a fascination with anything that he could build, and mathematics. His reading skills were not good but Ann and David had noticed that he could read, but it was selective, limited at first to the instructions for his models, so his parents used these to improve his reading, which helped his reading skills overall. There was no explanation, no reason given for his problems until he was ten when he was officially diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum, which brought some relief to the couple, and some help.


Ann and David had faced huge challenges, but today was a celebration of years of hard work. At eighteen, and beyond anyone’s expectations, Samuel was heading to University, to study engineering. There were still challenges ahead of him, and his parents’ role in his life would still be a regular commitment, but this was Samuel’s first step into his Independence.