I wanted to hug you tonight. I saw you walk in the door and I tried my best to smile. But I just couldn’t bring myself to reach for you. I can’t explain why. After all, we embraced this morning. It was light, and easy. It suggested a good day ahead. The problem is, a […]
One night, I kissed you. And you kissed me. Then we got married. We had five kids. We bought a minivan. We got a dog. We discovered autism. Or autism discovered us. Either way. Neither way. Raising children is important. It is fast, and fiery, and special, and ordinary, and fun sometimes and not-so-fun other […]
Hi. My name is Carrie. I have five kids. My second son, Jack, is diagnosed with autism. I used to think the hardest part of autism was the day we got the actual diagnosis—the day I walked into the cold rain of a November afternoon, and attempted to zip my squirming toddler’s jacket. I was […]
Did I tell you my son has autism? It’s usually one of the first things I mention, not because I want you to feel bad for him, or for us. I tell you about my him so you’ll know right away I don’t want to talk about nonsense. I don’t want to know about the […]
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 […]
I really enjoyed meeting you this week. We had quite a bit of time together to talk when you drove me to the airport, since there was a lot traffic. I didn’t realize there was so much construction in Austin. I liked hearing the stories of your childhood in Sudan, and how great herds of […]
Hey, Jack. You know how you have autism, right? I mean, we’ve never kept it a secret. It’s something we talk about a lot, actually. We talk about how, because of autism, your brain sometimes stays stuck on certain ideas, and you have a lot of fears about ordinary things, and your body jumps and twitches […]
My husband and I have a good marriage. Some days, I would even call it a great marriage. You might say it’s a love story of sorts; I’ve known him for nineteen years, and we’ve been married for almost seventeen. We went through undergraduate school together, then graduate school for me and dental school for […]
My husband, Joe, lost ten pounds in the last two weeks. How, you ask? Did he saw off his leg or contract malaria? Did he join Riverdance, a performance rumored to be so rigorous that dancers drop pound after pound on stage in water weight, and Irish jig his way to a sleeker frame? No, […]
