My son’s toddler girlfriend got married this weekend.

To someone else.

I have mixed feelings about this.

I’m happy for her. Truly. I’m also relieved I didn’t have to attend the wedding because, being autistic myself, any social obligation I can avoid feels a little like winning the lottery.

But I’m sad, too.

I’m sad because it wasn’t my son standing beside her at the altar. Then I feel silly for being sad because they were toddlers when they were “dating.” Then I feel even sadder because my son may never stand at an altar with anyone.

And he wants to.

Ever since Kiddo graduated from college, I’ve been coming to terms with all the things he might never do.

It isn’t easy.

Parents of disabled and neurodivergent children are expected to focus on what our kids can do. We’re supposed to celebrate every accomplishment, reject society’s narrow definition of success, and never—ever—admit that we sometimes grieve the things our children might not experience.

We’re supposed to be grateful.

And I am grateful.

I’m grateful for everything JR can do. I’m proud of how hard he has worked and how far he has come. But after years of telling myself that gratitude should somehow cancel out every other emotion, I’ve finally decided I’m allowed to feel this way.

Honestly, I’m going to feel it anyway. There’s no point in pretending I don’t.

It doesn’t mean I love my son any less. It doesn’t mean I don’t accept him exactly as he is.

It means I’m his mother.

It means I know there are things he wants for himself that, realistically, he might never achieve.

And I hate that.

This particular grief sneaks up on me every few years.

It showed up when my friends’ children graduated from high school. Again when they graduated from college. It appeared when my girlfriend’s daughter—a year younger than JR—went away to school, moved out, and built a life in New York City.

Each milestone became another reminder of the things my son might never do.

He may never live independently in a city apartment. He may never build the career he once imagined. He may never have a girlfriend, get married, or create a family of his own.

There it is again: never.

I hate that word.

I also feel guilty for thinking it.

I know better than to predict the limits of another person’s life. I know disabled people constantly accomplish things the world once declared impossible. I know my son is still growing, learning, and changing.

But I also know him.

I know what he wants. I know what he can do today. I know how much support he needs. I know that optimism and reality are sometimes two very different things, no matter how desperately I want them to meet in the middle.

Naturally, the sadness is followed immediately by an assessment of his abilities—and a brutal review of everything I believe I should have done differently.

I should have pushed harder.

I should have found more programs.

I should have taught him more.

I should get off my ass and do something useful instead of sitting here writing a pointless blog about everything my son might never do.

That would be more productive, wouldn’t it?

Probably.

But right now, maybe I just want to whine a little.

Maybe I need to say that this hurts.

Because I know that if you’re reading this and raising—or have raised—a disabled or neurodivergent child, you probably get it.

I want you to know that it’s okay to feel this way.

It’s okay to celebrate everything your child is while grieving some of the things they may never have.

It’s okay for both feelings to exist at the same time.

This grief ebbs and flows. It arrives at graduations, weddings, birth announcements, promotions, apartment-warming parties, and all the ordinary milestones we were conditioned to expect for our children before we even knew who they would become.

Feeling it doesn’t make you a martyr.

It doesn’t mean you’re ashamed of your child.

It doesn’t mean you wish they were someone else.

It means you love your child, and somewhere along the way, you were handed a picture of the life they were “supposed” to have. For many parents of disabled children, that picture doesn’t look much like the life their child actually has.

Sometimes, accepting the real picture means grieving the imaginary one.

I’ll probably have to reassure myself of that a million times.

I may never completely believe it.

That’s okay, too.

And if you have to reassure yourself a million times and still don’t quite believe it, that’s okay.

It’s human.

And in the end, human is all any of us can be.