Perhaps the best way to punctuate where you are in life is to remember from where you have been. Cliché as it sounds, sometimes it is just the kicker we need.
When our quadruplets were born in 1987, my brother gave us a video camera. It was a huge piece of machinery, weighed easily 20 pounds, and took energy and patience to learn how to operate; it was the best gift I have ever received.
It chronicled miracles.
I left the video camera right on the counter in my kitchen, always perched, ready to record. First steps and haircuts, birthday candles blown by multiples, new outfits in four different colors were filmed in unison as we beamed and smiled and cried.
Today, my 24 year old son Paul who has autism reminded me how I sang Disney songs to him as a toddler. What grabbed my heart was that I sang to him when he was non-verbal, and now he was reminding me. The memories flooded my head, like an ocean of unnerving nostalgia. I sang to him when he woke up in the morning, I sang to him during meals, in the bath, on the deck, in the park, at the beach. I sang to get his attention, a glimpse or a smile was my compensation. I earned it, like a beggar for a meal. What I wanted to do was cradle him, and protect him from a future with autism.
I held him and watched while he slept and wondered what he dreamt about. I wondered if he dreamt with language. Did he talk in his dreams? Did he sing? Did he understand?
And so today, was particularly special. More than twenty years have passed and without provocation Paul took a walk down memory lane…”You used to sing to me: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.” And without skipping a beat he continued “It was written by Jerry Livingston, Mack David, & Al Hoffman in 1950”. And then he crooned, like an old soul siphoning words like an angel. In dreams you will lose your heartaches, whatever you wish for you keep…have faith in your dreams and someday…your rainbow with come shining through…
The gift of autism.
So I brought out the old tapes and took my own trip on the video highway. What a buffoon I was, jumping and dancing to Disney. My kids simply had to think I was insane. But it was their norm: A mother of multiples, one with autism; with a mission to conquer.
I think I will use this lesson as my own reality bite.
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