12/09/2025
This bag of Haribo gummy bears isn’t just a bag of sugary, fruity sponges.
It’s a bag of memories, history and love from an Autistic young man with a heart of gold. This is his story.
It was one of my dad’s favorite candies and William knows that.
Every year we take a train ride with other special needs families we’ve become friends with and one of my brothers and sisters in law!
We ride to another town chatting, catching up and laughing , have lunch with a warm table of 12 at a popular restaurant near the tracks and then take that half hour ride back to our meeting place.
Charlie is older than William and loves trains! He plans the day with everyone’s agreement. Chooses the time to and from and keeps everyone informed.
William is always excited and looks forward to the adventure.
Over the years William has tried to interact with Charlie, and Noah when he can make it, but socializing in a “give and take conversation” was not something that came easy. That’s part of Autism.
He mostly talked about his own interests, cars and video games so he and Charlie had a hard time connecting. That’s Autism, too.
This is something they’ve been working on in his school social group to help them socialize.
Yesterday I watched with a smile as he had a wonderful conversation of give and take with Charlie. Asking him how his swimming was going and listening to Charlie’s stories of the other swimmers. Wow!
After lunch, without supervision, they both walked to the train depot where they usually feed the vending machines and then walk back.
This trip, William also used his debit card to grab our return tickets, without being asked, and returned with this bag of Haribo saying, “I used the machine to get our return tickets and this is for you, I
know your dad loved them”.
What a sweet gesture of appreciation and love. (We paid him back for the tickets 🙂 )
He is an old soul, maturing by the day and reaching goals we only dreamed of years ago.
Special needs growth is baby steps. Very tiny baby steps.
What takes a neurotypical child a short time to grasp, can take a neurodivergent child into adulthood to begin to grasp.
Our lives are unexplainably different than typical families but we navigate it with resilience, hope, hard work and perseverance every single day to see our kids reach their highest possible potential.
We celebrate the tiniest of wins - like having a typical conversation.
It truly takes a village of family and people who want to support him and see him succeed. People who never give up on him.
Thank you for the bag of memories, William. I’m so proud of your continued growth, kindness and maturity.
www.treatsbywilliam.com
