A lot of times people ask me to describe you, but I’m never sure what to say. You are fierce. Sometimes fiery. Often forgotten. Forgotten amidst the throngs of baseball uniforms threading their way to a green, green field. Cheering on the game in cold metal bleachers, no one remembers the boy who does not […]
Hello. My name is Carrie. I am almost forty-four years old. I am married to a man name Joe, and we have five kids. As I approach the middle of my fourth decade, I am noticing more and more all the things I think, but I do not say. First of all, my body is […]
Dear Mr. Bernstein, Hello, and welcome! I hear you are one of my son Jack’s teachers this year. I thought I’d give you a week to kind of settle in before I presented you with the rundown. You know what the rundown is, don’t you? Oh, it’s just something we special-needs parents do at the […]
Listen, I don’t like to give a lot of advice when it comes to autism. I mean, I hardly know what I’m doing and it’s all very complicated and every kid is different, right? But after we chatted for a few minutes in the Target aisle, and I walked away with my cart and you […]
Last week, a reader wrote and shared her story with me, about a husband and a father and a boy and autism. This family lived inside my head for days. For M. and B. You are not alone. To my Dad, It is a hot dry August now. We’ve had some thunderstorms but the air […]
Come here, Jack-a-boo. Sit next to me on the couch. You can look through the DVD’s in just a minute. Yes, I know The Mummy is three minutes longer than Cool Runnings. For now, please, sit with me. See, I’ve been thinking lately about promises. You know, like how I promised that we would go […]
Let’s play a game, shall we? Can you guess who I am? Okay, okay. I’ll give you some clues. You know, to help you out a little. You can’t taste me, or touch me, or hear me. But if you could taste me, it would be bitter, like a dry aspirin stuck in the back […]
If I were a painting, I would be colorful and bright and messy and unusual. If I were the ocean, I would be calm and blue one moment, and gray and stormy the next. If I were a song, I would begin softly, and slowly. Then I would increase my pitch and my volume until […]
A few weeks ago, I chatted with a father I know who also has a son with autism. In fact, they had just put him into full-time residential care. He told me about the year-long process to find the right place, and the profound sense of loss so deep, it felt like a death. Just before […]
