He is always screaming. But sometimes he’s quiet. I can’t find a way to soothe him. He squirms when I hold him. He cries all the time. He’s not talking. He has no words. He won’t look at me. I don’t know what he wants. All day long he cries and I don’t know what […]
I have never once sat in the bleachers and rooted for you to hit a homerun. I have never sat in a stuffy middle-school gym and rooted for you to spell the word paragraph into a microphone. That’s the tricky thing about autism. It makes me consider how we don’t root for the same things as most. […]
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 […]
The first thing she notices are the bushes. They reach over the sidewalk, forming an arch of green. Ducking beneath them, she thinks of her mother, reduced to ashes in a box. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Yet here, at this house, she is everywhere. Every corner hosts a memory. Tomatoes, plump and red […]
There is a tinge of autism in the air. We load the last of your bags in the car. I look to the sky. I think of newborns wrapped in blue. I think of spring. I think of sandcastles. I read somewhere that it’s easy to trap bees in a jar. This is because they […]
I know, it’s confusing. It’s confusing to me, too. You hardly knew her. We rarely talked about her. My mother. I’m erratic lately. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried not to be erratic. Yet since she passed away, I’ve wept without notice. Every afternoon around 3:00, a deep fatigue overwhelms me. I try […]
“Tell me about his diet. Does he eat a wide range of foods?” I hold the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I reach for a gallon of milk. “Oh, yes, he eats almost everything!” Another intake call. That’s what I find myself on in the middle of the grocery store. The young […]
Marriage is hard. Add a few kids, a mortgage, soccer practice, daycare, potty training, Driver’s Ed, and things can get a little dicey. Add in autism and all bets are off, as they say. Autism has a way of amplifying things. It’s kind of like being in a disco, where the lights are flashing and […]
I read an article about a teenage boy who took a girl with Down Syndrome to the prom. The piece talked about how amazing he was—how selfless and kind. It touched a nerve in me. At first, I couldn’t quite figure out why. I mean, what this boy did was very nice. But it didn’t […]
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cariello. Your son doesn’t seem to be a good fit for our summer program.” Spring always brings us up short. We’re not made for it. Just as the landscape comes to life in all its green glory, every obligation imaginable calls our name. Yet hiding right behind every fresh new blossom is […]