April 2, 2024, & Poem #2
It is National Autism Awareness Day in National Autism Awareness Month; doesn’t that sound grand? As we say here, every day is autism awareness day and it is a fine day, indeed! I realized tonight that this awareness day was voted in by the United Nations Council the same year our son was diagnosed with ASD, 2007. I haven’t written specifically about it in a very long time, but I thought I’d try to funnel my awareness to the page tonight.
Sorry, it is a long one as I have a lot to say about my favorite and most important Boy in this world (Man-Boy). I couldn’t get it to single space on the blog, so it looks longer than it is but I hope you read it to the end.
ASD Evidence for
Evaluation
You were what I didn’t expect
Even though I read the book on what to prepare for
When we
peeked at those
blurry
black and white
Pictures
of you swimming serenely
Floating
comfortably inside
Connected
by a cord
Each
inhale kept us both alive
Then out
you popped
Like a
loud champaign cork
They
pulled you into the cold, bright, noise
and at
first you didn’t cry
you
opened those big eyes and took it all in
and
visibly sighed
like a
very wise old man thinking
“Is this
all?”
I didn’t
think that
Nor your
father
As we
starred at our miracle child
That
didn’t cry
Wasn’t
wild
From
birth
Just
looking and leaning in
To see
what might happen
Saying
not a word
You were
late at everything
Walking,
talking on your own, drawing, and pointing
You had
to be poked and prodded for all of it
And yet
you drifted to anything written
You were
smitten with the alphabet
that you
could repeat or mimic
like a
little bird on our shoulder
you
cried to hold telephone books
and
rattled the pages
gloried
in what they said
One day,
being only a little past one
You read
to us
We
thought you were
Simply
repeating what you’d heard
We
couldn’t resist testing our tiny mimic
We gave
you a book
You had
never seen
It
sounds obscene
But you
read it!
Every
last syllable
You
would think
This was
our clue
About
you
At two and a bit
We were
suggested
To take
you
And get
you tested
No, we
thought
We were
fraught
With all, we’d heard
This
dreaded word
Autism
You flew
through all the tests
we
thought this best
but they
brought us back
to read
the facts
it was
what we dreaded
to pass
those tests
meant it
was embedded
somewhere
deep in family history
or had
to do with how late
you came
to us
with
disgust
they
looked at us
or so it
felt
like it
was our fault
they
called you marred
our
family scarred
your
future bleak
because
you still
didn’t
speak
The next
six years
You
hardly slept, spoke, or ate,
Still,
we thought you were great
Bringing
us so much joy
You
giggled and grew
And you
knew a slew
Of books
you could
Repeat
by heart
The
spark of humanity strong
You
plodded along
Exploring
everything
Siphoning
off our energy
And
re-energizing
Our
connection
To each
other, family, and the world
It
wasn’t a bed of roses
You’ve
many times
Said how
hard it is
To have
this plaque
You wear
and it wears you
Autism
It is
this thing that people think they know
Until
they try to get to know
You
The
autism sauce is mixed in
As part
of the dish
That is
your unusual
Perspective,
vocabulary, and deep insight
To the
corner of the world
You care
about the most
Your
passion reaches
Farther
than my mind and heart often
You
cause us to explore
Where we
wouldn’t, couldn’t, or hadn’t thought to
You
cause me to care more
Of those
I’d passed by
Without
a thought
If it
weren’t for the autism
You have
that in common
With
more people than you know
My joy
boy
That can
brew
Churning
into a storm boy
Is
Man-Boy rounding the adult corner
Where
those things still live together
In a
house less sensitive
Then
when he was a child
Now
milder compared to your wilder past
You’ve
learned clues
For
stretching moments of peace or hope
How to
cope
The
choppy waves
you
brave autism's cold, bright, noise
Floating
alone in the wide autistic sea
Where you can always exceed
anyone's expectations
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