Containing Autism

Your name is Jack.

You have autism.

There were times I tried to contain it, but containing autism is a little like trying to hold a tornado inside of a bucket.

It doesn’t work.

The bucket topples over and you are left with a lot of lightning and wind.

You can’t hide autism. 

My son, I will not hide you.

I will not hide the jumping or the anxiety or the medicine.

I will not hide who you are or what you have.

I made this decision a long time ago.

These things are you, and they are not you.

As you continue to settle into your college program, I would say this year has been rich with small milestones, complicated progress, and a whole lot of determination.

During Parents’ Weekend, you laughed more than once, and smiles a few times, and even threw your arm around my shoulders in a spontaneous display of affection.

Feeling your arm around me, well, it was like meeting you for the first time.

Lately I catch myself thinking about your first day of kindergarten, and the first time you ate a banana, and the first time you smiled.

Often I saw the diagnosis before I saw you.

For years I tried to fit you together with my expectations of who you should be, and I always come up short.

An infant who never slept.

A toddler who never spoke.

A 12-year old who could not stay in public school.

The thing is, I never considered the fire within you.

Lately, things are better. You are calmer. One might go as far as to say you are thriving in this program.

I’m not saying you’re cured, because I don’t believe there is a cure. I used to care about that but now I don’t care so much.

You’ll never be cured of autism, Jack-a-boo. You will have it forever and always.

Since you were first diagnosed, autism has been a trifecta of hope, grief, and peace.

Hope is the bundle of rocks I carry with me everywhere I go. They are heavy. I shift them from my back to my hip.

Grief is a little box of feathers I keep upstairs in my drawer. Occasionally, when I am alone, I open it. 

I watch the feathers float around the room and I think about the boy you could have been—a boy who plays sports and makes easy friends and laughs out loud at least once a week—and then I close it. 

I close the box. 

I close it because it doesn’t really matter anymore.

And peace? Well, peace is a little like climbing a long, jagged mountain with the bag of rocks strapped to my back. I clutch my box of feathers between my palms. 

I sweat and shake. I am tired. But every so often I look up to the top of the peak, and I see a quiet place. 

From where I stand, the grass looks soft. The sun is a gentle yellow.

I long to sit there, on the top of the mountain. I want to close my eyes and feel the warmth on my face.

For eighteen years I have held these three things close to my heart. I have nursed my wounds and chased the feathers and ached for peace.

For eighteen years, I have watched you make tentative progress, and then stand very still.

I have tried and worked and pushed. 

I am beginning to see there is a fourth side to the spectrum prism.

Possibility.

Possibility is a light. It shines so bright. It illuminates the rocks and it makes the feathers glow and it beacons a path up the mountain.

Who can you be?

Who will you be?

My son. You are possible.

Autism is a lot of things. It’s a dance in the dark and poetry in motion and a long climb uphill.

It is you, and yet it is not you.

It’s true, we are not at the top of the mountain just yet. Together, we will continue to climb. But every once in a while, I see the yellow sunshine out of the corner of my eye. I feel the soft grass beneath my fingertips.