My fears are not necessarily her fears

At four most children understand rejection, teasing, or even get hurt feelings when someone makes a comment, but not Nellie. In a way I'm thankful she doesn't understand the stares she sometimes gets. I always say how peoples looks bother me and my husband always asks me why. I tell him it just does, but the truth is deeper than that. I know deep down that for the rest of her life there will be people who stare, make comments, or snicker behind her back. No, Nellie may no understand, but I DO!!! She has this innocence about bad things that blocks out the negative people in the world and maybe I need to try to be more like that, but I can't.
It hurts me when people look at her eyes and laugh, it breaks my heart when she does something and people say nasty things. It's the same pain I have when one of my other children recall an instance where they have been teased, their pain is my pain.
I have so many fears for Nellie. I worry about people using her, abusing her, and the care she will receive. What will happen to my sweet angel when the evil in the world pokes out it's head and she just don't understand that this evil wants to harm her?
I understand she'll never be a rocket scientist, but I don't want her to be treated like a child when she's 30. She is capable, perfectly capable of doing many things others do, she just does them differently, or can't communicate as well. I worry about how she'll get around with her vision impairment, I worry if her hearing will go completely. There are so many worries that I harbor it's a miracle I'm still sane (well somewhat sane anyway). Then I look at Nellie and she smiles. She smiles through news stories that scare other children, she smiles through doctor appointments that would send children into fits of horror. She just keeps smiling.
Emma (My six year old) said something recently that really struck a cord. I was crying after Nellie's autism diagnoses and she turned to me and said, but mom Nellie doesn't know there's anything wrong with her and I laughed. She was right. To Nellie she is just like everyone else. She has fun like everyone else (in fact more fun I think). She has likes and dislikes. Her world may be a Little different than ours, but she doesn't know that. In Nellie's world she is "normal" and a big part of me wishes I too could be in that world. I want to live in a place where bad things don't exist. Where the most pain caused by others is a skinned knee from being knocked over. I want to be in a place where I can spin around in a circle until a fit of laughter makes me fall to the floor. A place where I can roll down a hill and play in the mud without any other cares. Yes, this must be a beautiful place and I am lucky to catch a glimpse of it now and then.
Perhaps when I look at things this way my fears should be lessened. Maybe my only fear should be that one day something will crumble this perfect world and she WILL begin to understand what people say, the stares and worst of all the comments. A place where I can sit in a beautiful sunset every night enjoying quietly the beauty of the things around me.