Our Journey with Anna

La familia Zarza: Héctor, Brandon, Bryan, Anna y Eunice

Dear Friends, we are the Zarza family and want to tell you about our journey with our daughter Anna. She is eight years old and has autism. It’s important to share that when she was diagnosed nearly four years ago, our lives changed a full 360 degrees. We experienced the grief cycle as a family. We are five in total; Anna has two older brothers who are 16 and 14 years, although they were little and didn’t understand entirely what we were going through. It was difficult for them because often we were so stressed by the situation, seeking out therapies and dealing with waiting lists to receive support for Anna that we were quite worn out.

The impact of this situation resulted in us feeling alone and that no one understood what we were experiencing. We imagined that people would see our daughter differently and that she would feel other people’s indifference. One big change was that we stopped doing activities where there were a lot of people present, or activities that were very loud.

We lived through different stages; the acceptance stage was vital to help our daughter. Each family is different. We took action and became advocates for Anna, fighting for her rights at school, searching for important supports for her. At that moment, our life was like a teeter totter. It’s important that as caregivers or caregiving families we have a space where we can express our feelings or let go of our stress, and something that helped the rest of our family was to start seeing things like Anna sees them. She is a girl who does not converse, but she managed to infect us with calmness through the appreciation that she feels for nature in general. She simply told us with her smile that everything would be fine, and we just focused on what kept her occupied.

So we decided to enjoy my daughter when it was possible. We discovered that going camping and being in touch with nature helped us clear everything and seeing our three children playing the same, in that case swimming, walking, and eating sweets was the connection our hearts needed. We gained results from these activities because then we decided that Anna would learn how to swim. Also, for her to have enjoyment in the places that the boys like to visit, we tried to go during the week and therefore avoid the weekend crowds of people, and up until now, this has worked well. Since Anna enjoys camping, the trips we set out on become enjoyable. Her favorite places are Winthrop and Wenatchee.

Anna needs caregiving, since for example she runs off if no one holds her hand when we go walking. She doesn’t recognize the danger in front of her. At school she needs a paraeducator by her side the entire time, and she still uses diapers. All of us in our family are trained to tend to her needs. Her brothers love her with all their heart, protect her, and teach her things as well. There are also some people who have been crucial for Anna’s ongoing progress; our friends from church and her teachers are part of her journey as well. It’s important to communicate with them so that Anna’s progress is reflected. Each school year we develop a letter for Anna’s new teacher so that she gets to know her strengths and also her needs which will need support. We call the letter “A little about myself.” It helps a lot because the teacher can get a better idea of how to support my daughter with this process.

Friends, I know that we all have endless experiences to share, and it would be wonderful if we could all listen and realize we’re not alone on this journey. What we have gleaned from this stage of life is that bringing up our daughter with autism means enjoying every moment. She progresses very slowly, but every step forward by her is like scaling a mountain and, simply put, extraordinary. Anna enjoys dancing, singing, painting, the solar system, and truly her memory is outstanding. This takes us to a loving and honest place, because Anna follows our steps, and we want those to be steps that take her far in life according to her abilities.

I say farewell to you by sharing that being Anna’s parents is the best thing that has happened to us. She’s teaching us to appreciate life and to respect her. Having a disability doesn’t limit you. We fight so that our children live in a healthy environment, and we teach others that being different is okay.