I have landed in a strange world. The people here are very odd. They won’t stop looking in my eyes when they talk to me. They connect their gaze with mine and hold it until I look away. It’s creepy. They touch my arm and ask me many questions. Jack! Buddy! Are you playing basketball this year? I […]
Every time we go to the movies, my son Jack reminds me to remember the credits. He says, “For Mom. Remember the credits.” It’s his way of reminding me he likes to stay for the end. He likes to see the name scroll up the screen—Costume Director, Music Composer, Supporting Cast. From the moment Jack […]
My son Jack was diagnosed with autism in 2005. I didn’t know a single person with autism. I didn’t know anyone who was shuttling their toddlers to speech therapy or sitting through evaluations in small, windowless rooms. Sensory processing disorder was a phrase you might find in a medical textbook, not on a questionnaire for […]
My son Jack was diagnosed with autism when he was a toddler. When you have a diagnosed child, the inclination to keep it a secret. My first instinct was to curl around him like a mother-shell—to protect him from labels and judgment. Was I also afraid of judgement? Of course. How could I be anything […]
Mama, what is a family? A family? Well, my child, a family is at once the easiest and the hardest thing to build. Think of it as a garden. Maybe you expected rows and rows of neat tulips, standing straight and tall in their church pews. You pictured them eating organic apples and placing the […]
Dear Me, I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking he’s going to outgrow this. He’s going to outgrow the way he stares blankly at the wall when you call his name. He’s going to outgrow the way he traces the grout line between tiles for hours. He’s going to outgrow the screaming fits […]
The first time I went to an IEP meeting was in 2006. My son Jack had just been diagnosed with autism. He was barely two years old. I sat in a folding chair. I remember feeling nervous. I wasn’t sure where to put my hands. The room was stuffy. We flipped through the reports. We […]
Hi. My name is Carrie. I am married to a man named Joe and we have five children. Our second son, Jack, is diagnosed with autism. For as long as I can remember, I’ve cooked dinner. I cooked with small kids at my feet and babies on my hip. I stirred tomato sauce while toddlers […]
My son Jack has autism. He is seventeen. He doesn’t have the television kind of autism. He doesn’t know how to count cards in Vegas or solve medical mysteries in a busy hospital. He doesn’t paint masterpieces or write concertos. He has the regular old kind of autism with delayed communication, limited eye contact, rigidity, […]
Sometimes people ask me what kind of autism my son Jack has. I don’t mind. I know they are simply trying to find purchase upon the slippery spectrum ice of the bell curve. And the truth is, so am I. Yet for seventeen years I have lived alongside autism, and I still don’t know what […]