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# When she was younger, my wife used to work with autistic children at a nearby specialist school so she had plenty of experience identifying symptoms and helping those experiencing them. This is why she is confident that I am at least somewhere on the spectrum.

Move forward a few years, when our daughters were young, she was a classroom assistant and drama teacher at their primary school. There was one particular boy who she just knew was autistic but no one seemed to want to help; he was tagged as difficult or naughty but she knew otherwise.

One day after school she met his mother in the playground and practically begged her to get him tested.

Due to various reasons (including me falling out with the head teacher while acting as a parent governor) we moved the girls out of that school and my wife no longer worked there, consequently she was never able to follow up with regards to the boy.

Fifteen years later she is now the reverend for an open and alternative online church; still helping others - it's just part of who she is.

We paid a house visit to one of the congregation, someone who my wife had become good online friends with, and were both struck by a feeling that we knew this person. A few questions were asked - did you used to live in... did you have a son called... did he go to this school... - and it transpired that she was that mother from fifteen years ago and, acting on the advice, got her son tested when everyone else had given up on him. Sure enough he was autistic and the help provided inproved things no end.

To say floods of tears ensued at the realisation would be an understatement. Both families had moved to different towns but had, completely by chance, reconnected in such serendipitous fashion.

We left the house that day with overflowing emotions, incredulous at what had just transpired, but so glad that it had.

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