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LESSONS
FROM GOD AND A LITTLE BOY
{Press
Democrat Editorial, Santa Rosa, California. August
6, 2000, by Leonard Pitts, Jr.}
An
old joke: "If you want to give God a really good
laugh, tell Him your plans." The way I figure it,
I must have the Almighty rolling on the floor by now.
See, I've never been short of plans. I planned to
have my last child off to college in a few short years.
After which, I planned to travel, planned to play, planned
to walk around the house in boxer shorts whenever the
mood struck.
I didn't plan to be raising a little boy with autism.
He's not even my child. Rather, he's the four-going-on-five-year-old
son of my 23-year-old stepdaughter. She, in turn,
is my life's great heartbreak, an unstable young woman
financially and emotionally incapable of raising her child.
And since she won't identify the father, guess who has
custody? Then, about a year ago, the other shoe
falls - we learn that our grandson is autistic.
I've been struggling with it ever since.
Whining, really. It's not fair, I moan. Don't
I have a say in what happens in my own life? I had
plans, God! Stop it, laughs God, hammering the floor,
you're killing me! I've gradually come to believe
there must be a larger point to this. Lessons to
be learned. In struggling with God and autism, I
struggle with myself. My selfishness. My lack
of faith.
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On
September 1, the Maryland State Department of Education and
the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene received
written notice that the federal Health Care Financing Administration
had finally approved its application for a Home and Community
Based Medicaid Waiver for children with autism ages 1 to 21.
There are 267 slots available in the first year, with approximately
350 slots available by the third year.
If the waiver is successful in its first three years, it will
be approved again. Under the waiver, students with autism
and their families could be eligible for Medicaid (case management,
screening, eas
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ily
accessible therapies, etc.). The waiver is meant for
children at risk of institutionalization. A parent's
income would be waived; the child would be considered a household
of one and income requirements for Medicaid would be based
only on the child's assets.
Although HCFA has approved the waiver to begin on January
1, 2001, MSDE is applying for an extension for the program
to begin on July 1, 2001. They need to hire a program
administrator and train psychologists and others, as well
as get providers on board.
Should you have an opportunity to run into, or meet, Stuart
Spielman, please give
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