I'm Grateful To You

You may have done it in ignorance, but you played the cards that needed playing.
You played the cards to keep me from the classroom down the hall, where "real measuring cups" are a thing to be proud of. (The people in that classroom are my kin. It is not avoidance of them I am grateful for, but avoidance of the fate they deserved no more than I did.)
You supported me as I was.
You supported my interests.
You supported my desires.
You worried, of course- who doesn't? But in the end, you tried to do right.
When they worried about my ability to go to China, you argued with them. (Allergies, not autism. They still didn't know.)
When they banned me from the class (over leaving the study abroad thing,) you helped fight.
They said it might not be fixed tomorrow.
I said that was fine- class didn't meet tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow was a test, and I preferred not to need to steal the test to take it.
You backed me up on that too. (I didn't have to steal it.)
Two years later, you helped me go... alone. I was sixteen, alone in a foreign country, and autistic.
I'm neither sixteen nor alone in a foreign country now.
I'm still Autistic. (You finally know, now.)
(You finally understand, now. I was not being lazy when I did not do what I could not do.)
Three times I tried to join treble choir.
Three times I couldn't.
After the third, I tried to join tenor bass choir.
I could. I did. (On concert night, everyone thought the program was mistaken. It wasn't.)
You supported me there.
I'm grateful.
You believed in me.
I'm grateful.
It wasn't always about my being a then-unknown Autistic.
Sometimes it was just growing up.
Sometimes it was just fairness (I suppose that may have something to do with Autistic,)
You believed. You did not call me burden.
I'm grateful to you.