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Sometimes you just have to laugh. Take this morning, for example. I’m sitting at my kitchen table reading a newspaper when my 26-year-old son walks into the room listening to his portable CD player. He has the headphones squashed down over his baseball cap and the wires tangled around his neck. His jeans hang low on his hips, but underneath he has his underwear pulled up over his navel. I know he’s listening to his new Ludacris CD when he hip-hops over to the table and asks, “What’s a money maker? Do I have a money maker?”
“Yep. If it means what I think it means.”
“Good!” Sam says proudly.
On a good day lots of words come to mind when describing Sam: goofy, witty, funny, playful, cheerful, autistic. I include autistic with these other words because it’s just that, a word, an adjective. Autistic is not who Sam is, it’s one descriptor among many. To understand Sam, you have to spend time with him. Sit with him, listen to his music, answer his repetitive weather questions. Forget your preconceived ideas about autism, about what autistic people can and can’t do. Just be with him. Enjoy him for who he is instead of seeing him for what he’s not.
So let this be a warning to the reader. If you’re looking for sentimentality, or if you want a heart-warming story about a cute, cuddly autistic child, you won’t find it here. Instead, I offer a realistic account of life with an autistic adult.
Likewise, if you want a narrative of overcoming, you best look elsewhere. There are no heroes here, no supercrip savant overcoming all odds to solve the latest mystery in numbers theory, and certainly no superdad, long-suffering and self-sacrificing.
But if you like to laugh, if you’re interested in the misadventures of an autistic young man trying to find his place in the world, and if you have a taste for irreverence and dark humor, welcome aboard!
Welcome, that is, to weather reports from the autism front, Sam Wilson meteorologist.
(Weather Reports from the Autism Front: A Father’s Memoir of His Autistic Son. McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008)
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Our son, Benjamin, is a seven year old, mostly non verbal autistic boy. He does not bang his head, but he will claw at his arm or clench things when he is frusterated. It takes a while to calm him down. When we think all is lost, he will walk over to us and say “hug” or “I love you” and we melt like snow in August.
Your posts are great…and often very funny. I really appreciate the honesty.
When people who do not have autistic childen say “I don’t know how you do it” or “I could never do what you do”, I just wanna bitch-slap them. Guess that’s just my rage at ignorance. I hope Ben understands.
Comment by Steven Levine— July 3, 2010 #
Thanks for your comment. I have the same rage at ignorance. Sam hasn’t hurt himself or others for over two years now, so we think (hope) he has mellowed with age. He’s 29, soon to be 30. He still lives in the apartment in our basement that he dubbed the Yellow Submarine, but he’s now working with home care providers (thanks to a partial Medicaid waiver) and working to become more independent and possibly live in his own apartment or condo. We’ll see. Best, J.W.
Comment by weatherreportsfromtheautismfront— July 4, 2010 #