In this deeply moving episode of Exploring Reality Maybe, we sit down with Sarah Kernion, writer, advocate, mother, and founder of Inchstones, to explore what it means to parent children with profound autism and non-speaking communication while letting go of the expectations of what life is “supposed” to look like.

Sarah shares how her children taught her to see “inchstones” rather than milestones—small moments of connection, growth, communication, and joy that are easy to overlook when we are focused on conventional measures of development. She opens up about the invisible labor of caregiving, the hypervigilance of “listening for footsteps,” and the radical self-care required to remain present.

Together, we explore communication beyond speech, presumed competence, co-regulation, the possibility of forms of communication we don't yet fully understand, and what science might learn by staying curious about experiences that challenge our current models.

We also dive into the spiritual dimensions of caregiving: presence, unconditional love, ego, surrender, and learning to live in the now. Sarah reflects on how raising her children has fundamentally changed her understanding of identity—not by constructing a new version of herself, but by “chiseling away” at the ego and the expectations she once carried.

This is a conversation about autism, but it is also a much larger conversation about how we define a meaningful life, what it means to truly see another person, and what becomes possible when we stop chasing “normal” and start paying attention to what is already here.