A Different Five

 I actually published this piece in a magazine for special needs parents called Spirit, some time in 2010 I guess.



A Different Five

                      

                      Night comes and it’s the fifth of Kislev- Mendel is five. Five is a big number if you have autism, and an even bigger number if you still don’t speak. For me (-“you” being my son-) it’s just big. HUGE.  So big, that I have successfully managed to drown myself in work and other random occupations to the point where I forgot that it was at all. But, reminded, I am left to face it. The day has come, and Mendel is five. At the dawn (or dusk) of this long-dreaded day, he is, contrary to all expectations, efforts, and imagination, still very much…autistic. Non-conversational, non-social, still in his own world, removed from such concepts as a birthday,  a birthday cake, or presents…and the understanding that his standard “fourt” is no longer the correct answer to the question, “How old are you?”.

 So this is five.  This is Mendel’s five.

 I confess: I spent the night of his fourth birthday a sobbing heap on the floor of my bedroom (because the cold, awful floor seemed that much more appropriate to the situation), unable to get a sentence out to my poor, sad-but-not-sobbing husband, bewildered and angry at the four I saw, and the image of the four in my mind. It was a sad, horrible night and only a slightly better day (because things always look better in the morning.)

But this year- I don’t expect to be there tonight. Partly because Mendel is really progressing now (though he has miles to go) and partly because I’m just too tired (having drowned myself in work, of course) but also, mainly, because I’ve learned a lot this past year. And one of the things I have slowly come to realize, and truly begun to understand deep inside, is that “doing well” or “getting better” is not, and will never be, all-or-nothing. And that waiting to get to know my son until he came for recognition was foolish, and wasteful: here he was, right here, a boy of such sweetness and, yes, joy, just waiting to be seen, as he was, as he is.

Because he is. Even before he speaks, even before he emerges from whatever place he is in- here he is, my son. A sweet, sometimes-impossible-but-always-precious boy.

There was, for a long time, a little boy in my head who was not my son, but, in my mind, should have been. Sometimes, still, I swat away an image of a nameless, faceless five year old boy- he who plays with friends and chats happily, fully engaged with his surroundings. But I don’t know that boy and he is not my son. My son is a person of another cut- but a whole being, a person unto himself, with interests and passions and a singularly unique way of expressing them. Not better, but not worse, than any other child his age- just different.

Happy Birthday, my boy. It’s a different five. But not better, and not worse- just Mendel’s, and mine.

Mendel always looks so typical in photos. This picture is from the summer of 2011, Mushka is seven, Mendel is five, Chana, three. in Stanley Park, Vancouver.