Emerging from the bunker
ye, Carter,” my son said to a classmate on the playground after school a few weeks ago.
“Bye, Owen,” the classmate replied.
“See you tomorrow,” Owen said.
Tears didn’t trickle down my cheeks, but my eyes were definitely damp. That two-round, Owen-initiated verbal interaction with a peer has been three years in the making. Three years of speech therapy, at school and privately. The last six months we’ve specifically drilled down on greetings and goodbyes.
It’s often seemed futile. More often than not, Owen doesn’t reply when greeted, not even with the wave that we agreed to settle for. So to initiate? To an unpredictable peer? And then follow up with a totally appropriate, relevant sentence?
To other parents, those five words would be breadcrumbs. To me, they were caviar. I will feast on them for months, like I did after this moment, And this one. They will sustain me over communication chasms, confounding sensory challenges, meltdowns, anxiety spikes, sibling struggles, and the bureaucratic morass that lies ahead with yet another insurance change next month—the third in the three years since diagnosis.
They will sustain me over communication chasms, confounding sensory challenges, meltdowns, anxiety spikes, sibling struggles, and the bureaucratic morass that lies ahead with yet another insurance change—the third in the three years since diagnosis.
They will sustain me over communication chasms, confounding sensory challenges, meltdowns, anxiety spikes, sibling struggles, and the bureaucratic morass that lies ahead with yet another insurance change—the third in the three years since diagnosis.
They will sustain me over communication chasms, confounding sensory challenges, meltdowns, anxiety spikes, sibling struggles, and the bureaucratic morass that lies ahead with yet another insurance change—the third in the three years since diagnosis.
They will sustain me over communication chasms, confounding sensory challenges, meltdowns, anxiety spikes, sibling struggles, and the bureaucratic morass that lies ahead with yet another insurance change—the third in the three years since diagnosis.*
And standing there on the playground under the hot, bright sun of a magnificent fall day, as I truly staggered under the emotional impact, I understood Kelli Stapleton.
Last month she allegedly attempted to commit suicide and murder her 14-year-old daughter, who, like Owen, is autistic. The incident has further polarized the already antipodal autism “community.” Kelli is vilified or defended. Her attackers, most coming in the form of venomous online commentary, have no tolerance for empathy, let alone the notion of innocent until proven guilty. Some defenders, on the other hand, seem uncomfortably able to justify the horrifying event.
I’ve bunkered myself amid this toxic anger, too conflicted to write clearly. Momentarily, the playground scene wiped that away. It comes down to this: Kelli didn’t get enough breadcrumbs, let alone caviar. As a parent, as a human being, she was starving. In her alleged act, she sought to cannibalize herself.
There is more to the story, certainly. More I don’t know, more you don’t know, more no one knows, and might not ever know. But I feel like I know that much is true, and needs to be said.
– The letter B brought to you by Daily Drop Cap.
* The strikethroughs indicate moments when I thought those breadcrumbs might not sustain me. In the three weeks since the goodbye incident, I’ve felt starved for hope multiple times. Then, some infusion of nourishment swings my pendulum back toward optimism. I keep on keeping on, praying I don’t reach the point where I can contemplate another alternative.