The sun is shining.
How can it * not * be a good day when the sun is shining?
We have had buckets and buckets of snow dropped on us from the heavens over the last three days and I have spent countless hours heaving and hoeing that snow, shovelling until I couldn’t feel my fingers and I needed a muscle relaxant to ease the tight knots in my back.
I spent a good chunk of this morning shovelling the thick, heavy snow at the bottom of the driveway. You know the kind…the snow plow throws it up like chunky vomit, thick with salt and dirt and it always freezes into a rock hard pile that has to be chipped away at before it can be moved. There is really no way to avoid that kind of back breaking shovelling, unless, I guess, I went out in the middle of the night to clear it away before it had a chance to freeze.
I don’t blog about my old life here. Here, I am “Julian’s Momâ€, not janetk. Those of you who knew me as my former self have either been briefly filled in on what went down or have been wondering where the fuck everything went so horribly wrong.
The truth is that bits and pieces of my old life still float around me…I never completely turned over a new leaf. Just sort of bent it in half, I guess.
And recently, there has been a whole lotta drama oozing from that old life. It’s a long story. And it’s not particularly interesting. I only mention it now because it’s hard not to curse some people when I’m heaving gigantic chunks of solidified snow that weigh more than my son and tossing them onto a pile that’s already too big at the end of a driveway that is already too narrow and getting smaller as winter surrounds us in it’s white blanket.
But this morning, the sun is shining. And like the Beatles song that has claimed my title for this post, “it’s alright.â€
Because last night something sort of amazing happened. Now, it’s just a small something, but sometimes those small somethings can turn out to be the most amazing of all, no?
Let me set the stage.
All of you have read me complain about Troy and his lack of understanding, at times, where Julian is concerned. You have read me ask for advice on how to improve that particular situation. You have “listened†to me list all of the ways I have tried to get him on board only to have my son thrust into “regular†clothing the next weekend. You have listened to my frustration and read my heart aching sadness.
For the record, I have given Troy books. I have given him a copy of what I consider my “bible†(Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes You Knew by Ellen Notbohm). I have photocopied the key elements of that book and highlighted the most important sub-sections of those elements when Troy did not, in fact, read the book. I have talked about what I now understand of our son. I have talked about Julian’s workers and doctors. I have tried. Scratch that. I * try *. I never stop trying.
Troy is not all bad. He’s not a terrible father. He’s not completely ignorant. I’m not sure why accepting Julian and Julian’s disability has been so difficult for Troy but I have tried (sometimes rather unsuccessfully) not to judge him.
Now, cut to last night.
Troy was here. Actually, he’s been here the last few nights. We have been trying to figure Christmas out. It hasn’t been going well. Nothing has been decided and I am nowhere near being ready. The clock is ticking but the solutions aren’t coming. Every night, we talk about Christmas and try to come up with a plan, only to end up falling into bed no closer to a resolution than we were the night before. This is why he’s been here so much….our conversations are always “to be continued.â€
Last night, I asked him if it would okay if I took a bath before we began our fourth round of negotiations. My back was killing me and my shoulders, too. My uterus is still waging a war on the rest of my body and my low iron has been giving me a headache that won’t go away. And I was cold. All of that shovelling managed to give me a chill in my bones that wouldn’t go away no matter how many layers I packed onto my body.
So, that’s what I did. I took a bath and a muscle relaxant and Troy went downstairs and put a fire on in the furnace to get the chill out of the house and out of my bones.
When I emerged from the bath, warm and surprisingly calm, my muscles having been relaxed with the combination of medication and hot water and my uterus shutting up for the first time in weeks, I ventured out into the living room, prepared to start our newest instalment of the same damn conversation we’d been having for almost a week.
I found Troy watching TV.
That sentence doesn’t do it justice.
I found Troy completely mesmerized by something he was watching on TV. He didn’t notice me come into the room. He only looked up from what he was watching when I sat down and touched his shoulder and then, he actually jumped a little, before turning his attention back to the set and the children on the screen.
I sat and watched a bit with him but I couldn’t really understand what he was watching. It appeared to be some kind of educational program…a documentary, I would realize. The people were British and the show itself was a bit dated.
“What are you watching?†I asked.
He took a few seconds before he answered me. He was paying close attention to what one British woman was saying about her eight year old son.
“A show about Autism.â€
I didn’t know how to react. Hell, I * didn’t * react. I just sat and watched…Troy, more than the TV.
It was on TVO (Canada’s answer to PBS) so there weren’t any commercials, but during a sort of slow part, Troy turned to me, his face animated, and said,
“One woman? Whose son has Autism? Well, she described it like a foreigner, you know?â€
I must have looked confused or stunned because he elaborated.
“You know…like somebody in a foreign country who doesn’t understand the culture or the language. A foreigner holding a handbook but never quite understanding what is going on or being said. That’s how she described her son.â€
He was smiling. Like, really, really smiling. So I smiled back.
“And you liked that description?†I asked him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.†Then he turned back to the TV where a woman whose first born was Autistic and whose second born had Asperger’s Syndrome was talking about how her second son really struggled when he entered school because he refused to wear his school uniform and instead, only wore Buzz Lightyear pajamas.
“That’s Julian!†Troy said, more to the television than to me.
(And it’s true…Julian has a pair of the exact same Buzz Lightyear jammies that are worn out from constant wear)
I sat and watched the program and Troy. During another slow part, he turned to me again and said,
“Do you mind if we wait to talk until after this is finished? Cuz they’re going to have some scientist on and I really want to hear what he says.â€
I think I mumbled something that sounded like “okay†but I can’t be quite sure. Needless to say, I sort of sat there dumbfounded, the muscle relaxants removing any coherent sense I had left that the show about Autism and Troy’s intense concentration hadn’t already removed.
When the show was finished, I followed Troy to the basement where was putting more wood into the fire. Because of this, the memories of last night will always be covered in a sense of literal warmth, the heat from the wood fire removing any traces of ache or chill that the huge white pills had left behind.
And then he talked. He talked about how he had tried to read the book I had given him and he tried to understand what the author was trying to convey but it didn’t make sense to him. He talked about how he did love his son and he accepted him whole heartedly, he was just confused about what made Julian tick. And then he talked about what the scientist on TV had shown and said. He talked about the science behind the ever confusing Autism and the different theories floating around about what causes it and what to do about it. He talked about brains and sensory processing and peppered each thought and each shared bit of knowledge with little accounts from the parents and teachers on the documentary.
About how people with Autism can only look at one thing…like the bottom of a face or one square on the television. He talked about how people with Autism said they saw the world. About how some scientists believe that there is a literal, physical difference in the brains of neuro-typicals and the brains of people on the spectrum. He talked about how some scientists believe it is genetic. He talked about how one woman…the same lady whose two sons were both on the spectrum…had a father who was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was fifty six years old. He talked and talked and talked.
I listened.
And I watched Troy have an epiphany.
I have never been particularly interested in the hows and whys of Autism. I have never really cared to know why this has happened, what causes it or whether it’s genetic or environmental. I have said many times before that while ASD is not without it’s struggles, I truly believe that if I work with it, instead of against it, it can be a blessing. A gift. A different ability instead of a disability.
I have never needed to listen to a scientist to help me understand what makes Julian tick and tock. I have never needed their help to accept Julian for everything that he is… and everything that he is not.
I didn’t realize that * that * was what Troy needed.
Like I said, it’s just a small something.
But it’s amazing.
Here comes the sun, indeed.
Two soldiers walking along a road trip a land mine. One is killed, the other survives. The family of the surviving soldier proclaims "God was with him-- it's a miracle". The other family might say, "It was God's will". How simplistic is all that? How inane (and insane)? NO! It's the way of the universe. #### happens. I read recently where a minister and his family were headed for church, when a tree inexplicibly fell on their car, killing the man and his wife. Now, did god do that? Now if the tree just happened to miss his car, "did god do that"? It's all happenchance. Luck or lack thereof. No "miracles" (from god). No rationalizations or excuses or explanations about how "god works in mysterious ways". Good things happen (some people survive cancer), bad things happen (some people die of cancer). No god saving us or "taking us". It is what it is.
There. Randy