Please, Don’t Tell Him
Listen, I get it. He’s twelve. He’s almost as tall as I am and his sneakers are a whole size bigger than the ones I wear. He’s in the seventh grade.
His older-by-one-year brother knows. His younger-by-three-years sister is beginning to connect the dots. Quietly, when no one else is in the room, she asks about wrapping paper and elves that sit on shelves. She questions the logistics of a sleigh traveling millions of miles in a single night.
And when we went to the mall, fifth-grade Charlie smiled gamely and posed next to the white-bearded figure, but when he walked away I saw a little skepticism in his eyes.
Not him. Not my Jack-a-boo.
Please, don’t tell him.
When he was two years old and he barely said any words at all, we had this book called “How do Dinosaurs Clean Their Room?” There are a bunch of them, about dinosaurs going to school and having parties and making friends.
One morning right before Christmas, my husband Joe and I were sitting around the little round table in the kitchen, finishing breakfast. Jack looked over at the big purple book his big brother Joey was holding and said, “dino.” That was it, just dino.
It was enough.
I jumped in my car and drove to the bookstore to find more of those books. For the first time since we signed the paperwork that said “Autism Spectrum Disorder” next to my son’s name, I was happy. I was excited. I was hopeful.
I could just weep now for my dummy 30-something self racing all over town for those books. I could weep thinking about how desperate I was to recapture the glimmer of recognition in my little boy’s downcast eyes.
I went to three stores. And I bought every single one of them I could find. But when I got home, he was lining up his Thomas the Train engines and he didn’t even look at me.
See, I have spent the last twelve years waiting; waiting for him to look at my face and to say a word I could understand and then to string those words together into a sentence and to tell me he wants more juice instead of screaming and banging his fists on the floor.
Now, I wait for him to laugh. He doesn’t laugh a lot, maybe once every four or five days.
I wait for him to tell me why, for the love of all things holy, why the radio station in the car has to stay on 94.1 all the time.
I wait for the day I can breathe again because I know he’s going to be all right.
Twelve is pretty old to still believe, I know. You see, trapped inside this burgeoning middle-school body is the spirit of a much littler boy. He is naïve. He is young.
It’s easy to think he’s older, because he’s tall. And his silver-framed glasses lend him an air of maturity, like a snappy professor with a crew cut. Plus he looks so serious all the time, so somber and thoughtful, not like a kid but like a grown-up adult trying to figure out how to pay the light bill.
This year for Christmas he wants a new muffin tin, and a selfie stick, and the diamond edition of Disney’s Cinderella but only on Blu-Ray.
This last one gets me. Not because we don’t have a Blu-Ray player—which we don’t—or because I’m concerned he’s too into princesses. It’s because I watched him earnestly write it down in his letter and underline it with a red pen. Then he signed it “Love, Jack,” and sealed it into an envelope for me to mail.
Still, I don’t want to tell him.
It’s tempting, I know. It’s oh-so tempting to pull him aside and bend down close to his ear and say listen, buddy, it’s not what you think.
Here’s the thing. This boy of mine, he mostly sees the world in black and white. But this time of year, he finds vibrant splashes of color within a fantasy of velvety brown antlers, a soft white beard, and a plush red hat.
For him, this is color in the magic, some enchantment in the painted landscape of Christmas. He is delighted by it all—the cookies shaped like candy canes and the lights on the tree and the stockings. Who am I to take that from him?
I don’t know how to explain this other than to say he isn’t exactly the happiest person I’ve ever met. He is not very joyful. He’s more of a glass-half-empty kind of guy, if you know what I mean. So when I notice something that puts a jaunty little skip in his step, well, I grasp it with both hands and hold on to it tightly.
Life isn’t really easy for this tall boy of mine. Like a tender, bruised apple, he bumps along his unusual road, and every minute of every day he knows he is different and not like all the other apples, but he has no clue to make himself the coveted same.
I know that one day, he will figure it out. He’ll watch something on YouTube or he’ll overhear a joke and he’ll know that all this time, it wasn’t real.
He has very good hearing, my Jack-a-boo.
Maybe his heart will shatter. I don’t know. Maybe he’ll cry, and say it isn’t fair, and be very angry at me for letting him believe for so long. Hopefully, he will be able to see it for what it is; a small, colorful mercy.
For now, please don’t tell him. Let him have this.
Let me have this. Let me have the thing I have always wanted when it comes to my son and his autism. Let me suspend time, and stop the always-ticking clock so I can celebrate just one single moment without thinking about his handwriting or his eye contact or whether or not he’ll ever have his own apartment.
So if you see a tall boy wearing a grey and blue jacket in the grocery store piling pounds and pounds of butter into the cart and talking about making red and white cookies for a man who rides in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, I hope you’ll smile kindly, or even wave. Perhaps you’ll say a quick hello.
But please, don’t tell.
Let him keep the magic for as long as he needs it. For now it is his, to gently hold in the palm of his hand like a dazzling, splendid snowflake. All snowflakes eventually melt—some just take a little longer than others.
We still have all of those books about the dinosaurs. Every time I see them upstairs on the shelf in the playroom, I feel a combination of happy-excited-hopeful again.
When he laughs it sound like bells ringing across the cold night sky.

December 19, 2016 @ 8:48 am
You know what is better for him. I overheard it too, but I never believed it and I never asked for the truth. For me he will always exist! Happy Holidays!
December 19, 2016 @ 9:01 am
This blog entry reminds me so much of the year I finally had to tell my son that Santa only exists in our hearts at Christmas. He would have still been believing today, at age 37, if I hadn’t spilled the beans. His middle school friends were not so kind about him still believing and when he proudly sat on Santa’s lap at the school Christmas party amid the laughter of his peers, I had to protect his feelings. He still has the magic of Santa in his heart and enjoys the holiday as much as any child, I think. He gets so excited, in fact just this morning he proclaimed “only five more days to Christmas”. John never was angry that I allowed him to believe for so long – and I have never regretted it for one minute. Merry Christmas Jack and the rest of the Cariello family!
December 19, 2016 @ 9:03 am
And now I’m bawling thinking ahead to that dreaded stage. For now we’ll cherish the magic. Wishing you and yours a magical Christmas.
December 19, 2016 @ 9:07 am
I hope no body tells him and spoils his moment,,as a grandmother of a child with Autism,,i know those smile are not often but when they happen the whole room brightens,,my daughter has a 11 ,and 9 yr old son,,and has had custody of a boy and a girl of a family member for 3 yrs ,,the girl is now 4 and the boy 6,,he is the one with autism,,they are almost adopted,,just waiting for the time to elapse for the waiting period,,,when they first got him age age almost 3,,it was a nightmare,, to get him the help and treatment he needed,,he is doing so much better,,but let the routine get messed with and he doesnt do well at all,,my daughter just found out she was pregnant,,,,we have no ideal how he is going to react with a new baby in the house,,,how did your son handle a new sibling?
December 19, 2016 @ 9:19 am
So well expressed.
December 19, 2016 @ 10:19 am
I have a normal developing almost-12-year-old (as well as an ASD Jack of my own!) and she still believes, even through her first year of middle school and I’m treasuring every moment of it. In fact, she accidentally sat on our elf the other day and cried for the longest time and then wrote him an apology note begging him to keep his magic…these are the things this magically holiday is all about!!!!
December 19, 2016 @ 4:05 pm
Both my boys 14 and 17.5; with high functioning Autism still believe! Keep wanting to tell them but it is hard to take it away.
December 19, 2016 @ 7:05 pm
My son is 16 and still believes. He knows that many other kids don’t, but he is stubbornly hanging onto the magic. We talked about keeping it to ourselves…….I had to make sure he isn’t getting teased about it. He doesn’t interact much with schoolmates, so there isn’t much chance he’ll discuss it anyway.
December 21, 2016 @ 4:20 pm
I think it’s beautiful that Jack still believes in the wonder and magic of Santa. Thank you so much for all your beautiful posts this year — I read faithfully every Monday and always find myself so moved by what you write. Wishing you and your whole family a happy Christmas and New Year.