I Have the Son With Autism

I have the son who couldn’t sit still for circle time.

I have the son who whirled around the doctor’s office, all moving limbs and screeching sound.

I have the son with autism.

I have the son who shrieked and clawed his way through puberty.

I have the son who bit the teacher.

He left a red mark on her arm. When I picked him up from school and saw it, my heart stopped.

I have the son who threw his homework to the floor.

Multiplication tables. Spelling lists. Questions about continents, cultures, and a river run orange.

He ripped them all to shreds. The pieces fluttered around like so many silent wings.

He never said he couldn’t do it. 

He just said he didn’t know how.

He didn’t know how to move the numbers to the right spot. He didn’t know how to put the words into alphabetical order. He didn’t know how to picture a place where the water rushes tangerine.

He didn’t know how to glue back what had already been torn apart. 

I have the boy who was afraid of the wind.

Every morning he would open the door and listen for the air. He gathered his jacket around his chest, and with his head down, he charged into the gust.

I have the son who wanted more than the world offered. 

He wanted college.

He wanted a space of his own.

He wanted a chance. 

I have the son who makes people uncomfortable.

His questions, his intensity, his gaze, his size.

Six feet. Five inches.

His heart is young. Yet his height is imposing.

Every day, I fear for his safety.

I’m afraid he’ll say the wrong thing.

I’m afraid he’ll startle someone in the dark.

I’m afraid he’ll unknowingly intimidate or offend.

At the same time, my fear is replaced with something even worse. Hope. See, with hope you have something to lose.

I hope he will make a friend.

I hope he will make a life of his own.

I hope he finds joy.

At some point, he stopped biting.

For the most part, he learned to sit.

One day, he left for a college program.

It was July. The sun shined bright and jealous overhead. We packed all that was meaningful to him into the car.

Though his autism diagnosis is without cure, still, he has changed. 

A lot has changed.

Like a caterpillar within a chrysalis, he has taken a most colorful flight.

I have the son who makes me want to be better.

He fights every day. That’s the thing. 

Every day he fights for his place in this world. He fights for all that is rightfully his. 

Independence. Freedom. Opportunity. 

He never understood why they weren’t his in the first place. 

I have the son with autism.

He is the wind.

He is the air.

Slowly, he pieces the wings back together again.

All his dreams are new.