Planting Sunflowers

My son Jack has autism. 

He is seventeen years old. 

This May, Jack will wear a cap and gown, and graduate from high school. 

Life alongside autism is like a thrilling rollercoaster ride—heart soaring one moment, a pit in your stomach the next. 

I am so proud of him I could burst. 

And yet I am worried to the point of despair. 

What will he do next?

I have an Excel spreadsheet open on my computer, listing all the programs available for people like him. There aren’t many, and they are competitive. Most have less than a dozen spots a year.

What if he doesn’t get in?

What if there is nowhere for him to go?

What will he do?

The programs have names like Strive, and Reach, and Sail, and Excel.

For some reason, the names make me feel quietly unmoored. 

On one hand, I am grateful they exist—grateful there are stops between full residential care, and full-time college student. 

On the other hand, will he be infantilized his whole life?

Round and round my mind circles.

The truth is, I thought this process would be fairly straightforward. 

I thought we would identify a few programs and I’d help him apply and pass along the doctor’s letter confirming that yes—yes!—this boy Jack does, indeed, have autism.

My naivete, it seems, knows no bounds. 

Instead of SAT scores, we need to submit psychological reports. 

Instead of essays, we have to fill out complicated forms about hygiene, safety, and guardianship agreements. 

It is a delicate balance of expressing his vulnerabilities while emphasizing his strengths.

He has severe anxiety, but he manages his own medication. 

He makes the most delicious chocolate cake you’ve ever tasted, but he screams and circles the room if the fire alarm starts. 

When he was eight he collected license plates. From Maine to Washington to Australia, people sent them until we had a wall full.

The summer he was none, we went to Bertucci’s every week for lunch. Slowly, he learned to order his food, wait until it came, and thank the server.

When he was ten we planted sunflowers on Father’s Day. At first, they were small, but all at once they grew tall. They towered on their long stalks. Their petals were a bright, vibrant yellow. They craned their heads and drank up the sun.

When he was in the sixth grade, he went through a storm so deep and wide I thought we might lose him to the blizzard. 

After school he climbed into the bathtub wearing all of his clothes. He never ran the water. He simply huddled with his arms and legs pulled close, and stared at the ceiling. 

Now, at seventeen, we’re ordering a cap and gown and filling out paperwork with words like disability and transition.

They don’t capture him.

They don’t capture the way he wore his father’s suit to church and puffed with pride.

They don’t capture the way he dug deep into the loamy earth and buried the small seeds.

He is important. 

He is important in ways we may not even understand. 

He is important because he challenges the way we think about societal norms and cultural expectations and the concept of communication.

He has no ability to whisper. He simply cannot do it. 

What if we can’t find a program for him?

And yet, what if we do?

What if we secure a coveted spot with enough support and scaffolding for academics and the right location?

He won’t live here anymore. 

Sure, he’ll come home for breaks and we’ll visit, but the truth is, his childhood is coming to a close. 

My whirling-dervish toddler, my stormy sixth-grader, my wild-child, my game-changer, my son.

I don’t know which part of the rollercoaster I’m riding.

But this is what it was all for, isn’t it?

The timers on the table so he’d sit through dinner, Sundays in church so he may understand prayer, loads of towels to teach him about laundry.

This is what we’ve been working toward for seventeen years. And it has often been the hardest work I’ve ever known. 

Every afternoon, at exactly 2:52, he walks through the door, and calls out to me.  

Mom. Mom. I am home.

This boy Jack, he is the background of my tapestry, the tympani of my day, the beat to my heart.

Did he have a good childhood? I know it was different than most. 

It was full of social stories and redirection and meltdowns and appointments and therapies.

But there were good parts too. I know there were.

Soft buttered rolls, unexpected jokes, cannonballs on sunny afternoons, small moments strung together like lights on a string.

My son.

I don’t know how to let him go.

I will, though. 

This is a mother’s heart. It shatters and soars at the exact same moment.

I hope he remembers the good parts.

Strive.

Reach.

Sail.

Excel.

In his very own way, he will do all these things, and more. 

He already has. 

His triumphs are there. They are simply smaller, like the petals of a flower. Still, when clustered together, they glow.

Sunflowers don’t come up every year. The seeds begin again each spring. I never knew this. 

I could weep with joy for each step he takes. 

He deserves the chance to blossom.

The quiet will be deafening.

Helping shape another life is perhaps the most terrifying thing I have ever done.