My Sons, Pure Poetry

If there's one constant about my boys, it is this: John is always in motion and Sam is always talking.

************

John's hands flap, fingers flick, solo then together. Legs skip to a beat he surely feels but we don't hear. He jumps and runs and flies through the air. Give him a wide open space: the backyard, or a football field, or a park in springtime and he's off. Movement is his poetry.

When he was younger — two and three and even four — he was oblivious to everything but his pursuit of lines and shadows and above all, street signs and lampposts. There's this new documentary called Loving Lampposts? and I can't wait to see it — I have dozens of photos of John doing just that. When I think about that time, which is not so long ago, I think about the panic that tinged every facet of my day with them. Normal trips to the grocery store or to the playground were wrapped in a layer of impossibility and responsibility. While most children stay with their parents when they go out into the world, John's first instinct was to bolt. I felt like his very survival depended on my not letting go of his hand.

I still think that it did.

But something has changed with my boy. He stops when you tell him to stop. He turns when you call his name. When we go to the playground now he is still drawn to the same things but he's also the boy going down the slide and the boy saying "Swing Mommy Push?"

Sometimes when he strays too far, that familiar panic begins its rise in my belly. I'll begin my sprint after him but just as quick am frozen in my tracks when he turns and stops at the sound of my call. It's kind of a freaking miracle.

************

Ever since Sam was two and learned his alphabet, he started to talk and has not stopped. If he is not talking about anything and everything under the sun then he is humming. He hums while drawing, he hums while playing, he hums while eating, he hums all the while. When I draw his attention to it, he'll be quiet for maybe 15 seconds and then busts at the seams with sound. It is his poetry.

Sometimes, shame on me, I tune out. I almost missed this loveliness. Something about the language was different and so I stopped cutting vegetables and exclaimed, "Wow, Sam, was that a poem you just spoke aloud?"

"Yep." he said. "It's called All Around the Year." I asked him if it was in a book he was reading and he said no, his teacher had read it aloud to them in class. And he remembered it.

"Honey, do you think you could write it down for me? I'd love to have it," I asked, once again completely and utterly amazed at his memory.

A Poem

All Around the Year

Now, winter that

mean polar bear. Goes loping

inside its lair. A melting

river tugs loose its terrible

bear hug.

Winter

Spring

As Earth starts to seethe

As plants grow. Willow

branches grow high.

And so will I. And so will I.

When I Grow Up

"Mom," he says. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I tell him that for one, I'm already grown up and 2) I'm doing it — I'm his mom, I'm John's mom.

And then I follow it with a long-winded tale about life before kids, when Mommy actually Worked. In an office! Because that's the pinnacle, you know, that's what Daddy does.

"Yeah, but what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Honestly, I just want to know what the heck a Fujita Scale is.

Jumping

A little boy jumps on the couch, a grin spread ear to ear. He says, "Mommy sit? Mommy play?" and I stop in my tracks. I look again, pretty sure I passed Sam upstairs before coming down here.

John?

You bounce up and down, up and down, and now I see the squint in addition to the grin, the finger puppets dancing by your face. Since when do you ask to play? I grab you and give you a big hug. You laugh and say again, "Mommy sit? Mommy play?" I tell you that first I need to help Sam get started on homework.

Then you say the most amazing thing: "Sam downstairs play?"

Who cares about homework. I yell for Sam, Come downstairs and play with your brother! He asked to play with you! and Sam comes running.

Age 3, Sam in pursuit

It's hard to explain how my heart fills and overflows at the sight of you two laughing together, jumping together up and down, up and down. It may not last for long, and who knows when it might happen again, but this moment leaves me breathless.

The things that other people take for granted with their children.

You laugh and jump and plop together on the couch and it seems to me that for the briefest of moments there is no autism here, just two brothers doing something so ordinary that it qualifies as extraordinary.

John, your brother has never given up on you — he's climbed, chased, pulled, turned, followed, and sometimes hit you — all in an effort to get your attention. He loves you so.

And today I see just how much you love him.

Autism Awareness

April: here we are again. Daffodils spring from the ground, the pear trees are about to flower and a month of autism awareness, a month of opportunities stretches before me.

This is my autism.

Two boys so identical and yet so different. Sam says, "Mom, can I stay up late tonight?" I ask him why, what does he have in mind, maybe 8:30? "No. I was thinking that I could stay up from 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock. That's a.m.," he adds. Uh, no I say, that is way too late for a six-year-old but I offer to let him stay up until 9:00. "Okay!" he says, happy at this unexpected extra half hour. "When I'm a young man, though, I can stay up late, late as I want, right?"

Yes, baby, you surely can.

John skips skips skips through the house, the sound of his feet hitting the floor has become so familiar in our household, even the cats barely blink as he tromps by. Sometimes, when I am stressed out and trying to do a million things at once — make dinner or fill out forms for school or do laundry — sometimes the pounding echoes the beating of my heart and I'm afraid it might leap out of my chest, fall to the floor and break. Like now, so I yell, "John! Slow down, buddy!" I breathe deep and listen: he has stopped, I count 1...2...3... but he's off skip skip skipping again.

This is what autism looks like in my house.

Sam is building a diorama of the Sprout Sharing Show. He has dumped toys from a plastic box and put it on its side, used an entire roll of Scotch tape to adhere mini cutout stars and a pig, a pig that he cut out himself, and then brings it to show to me. I am super impressed and I tell him how great it is. He is so proud. John comes up to look, not look, skips by again. I ask him if he has to go potty. "Potty?" he says, his affirmative. We run to the bathroom but we're too late. It's all I can do not to scream.

This is our autism.

They both have the longest eyelashes — people tell me it's not right that they're wasted on little boys, but I disagree. They frame eyes so big and brown that when I catch them, even for an instant, my stress fades away. Especially John's, whose looks are fleeting and rare.

Tonight I hold a sleepy sleepy John on the couch. Every few minutes he raises his head and says "Animal hands? I. Want. animalhands?" those awesome tattoos that seemed made just for him. I stroke his hair and tell him not tonight, we'll do one tomorrow. I know he can hear me, does he understand? As 9:00 draws near, he is fast asleep and curled up beside me. I carry him up to bed, tuck him in and just as I'm about to walk away, his arms reach up for me and pull me close. "Iwantanimalhands. Mommy, ok, tomorrow."

You got it love.