We moved into our neighborhood 12 years ago when I was pregnant with our second son. We didn’t know anyone there but started to figure out who was who.

A year and a half after my son was born he had a terrible reaction to the MMR vaccine that made him break out in a full body rash and have high fevers for a week. Shortly there after he lost all his speech and had trouble walking.

It was devastating.

We had a hard time navigating our life with our son with special needs. He started displaying behaviors associated with autism in the year to follow. We eventually ended up with a non verbal moderate autism diagnosis, global development delay and speech delay along with ocd and ADHD.

We were concerned about him making friends. We noticed the neighborhood kids would stare and sometimes point at him. My eldest son who is nearly 5 years older did his best to defend his younger brother.

The years passed and slowly my older son started to make some friends on our street. Jeorge and Milo would come ask if he could play but never would they ask for my son Ryder who was more their age.

One day Jeorge said something about Ryder that came off very rude, he had ridiculed Ryder. Sidd my eldest was quick to defend Ryder and decided to distance himself from him.

More years passed and Jeorge started to come around again.

This time with an interest in understanding Ryder. He came over with a Star Wars ship that he got for a present but never opened. He told us his dad recommended he give away the toy to Ryder since he wasn’t using it.

That small gesture built a bridge.

Sidd started to hang out with Jeorge and Milo more playing soccer in the street but they would come to the door and say hi to Ryder too and my youngest daughter Aida. We started taking the two neighbors to the pool, we invited them to birthday parties … and they became part of our routine. They both work actively to try to understand Ryders limited speech and engage with him at the neighborhood pool. When they didn’t understand something they weren’t afraid to ask me to explain.

A couple weeks ago Jeorge came to our door asking to play, and I told him we were busy at the moment but could hang out later. He then proceeded to tell me there was a boy on the next street over who confronted him about playing with Sidd, the boy with the “sped” (special needs ) brother. This boy was trying to make fun of Jeorge for being friends with my kids. Jeorge stood up for Sidd and for Ryder and told the kid if he wants to have a fight over this he would defend his friends. The kid didn’t want to have an altercation, after seeing how serious Jeorge was the kid backed off.

When Jeorge told me this story it dawned on me that over the years, slowly and surely Jeorge had become an advocate and also an amazing friend to my family. I handed him a pack of chips ahoy cookies we had (Ryders favorite) and told him I really appreciated what he did.

Sometimes beautiful things take time to grow. They need to be nurtured. We don’t live in a luxurious neighborhood but the friends we have here our worth there weight in Gold.