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| photo by Barbara Toboni |
My expectations had been high for our first-born son. That’s
why I felt overwhelmed when I left the office of our pediatrician with
four-year-old Chase. Mild autism? What little I knew about autism, I had seen at
the movies or read about in books. While my imagination flipped through frightening
images of children rocking, screaming, and flapping their arms, David seemed to
consider this a mere blip in his boy’s life. I should have understood. He had
always been an optimist.
David came up with his own diagnosis: “That doctor is mildly
autistic.”
We both had a lot to learn.
A few years later, after more testing, a psychologist told
us that our eight-year-old would never learn to read phonetically.
I tended to believe her, but David was skeptical. At
breakfast the next morning as Chase ate his bowl of Cheerios, David asked our
son to read the milk carton. Chase read the simple words first. This milk is from cows. He stopped. Homogenized was the next word.
“Sound it out,” David said.
Hom-gen-ized.
Not bad! Maybe David had a point. The doctors didn’t know
everything. Why was I so quick to believe them? It was true our boy had
problems, but he strived to be like everyone else. He seemed to want to please
his father.
When the boys were small, David worked long days as a cement
mason. Although his company was based in Napa he often did repairs on existing
buildings out of town. Commuting added extra hours he was away from the boys and me. That left mom on duty just about all the time.
Adding to that, I felt isolated. My relatives lived out of
state and David’s family lived out of town. Sure, I could pick up the phone and
call David’s mom or sister, but I didn’t want to call just to complain. Friends
couldn’t relate to my troubles. I shied away from them preferring to be alone
rather than having to explain Chase’s odd behaviors.
When David wanted time to pursue his interests—fishing,
diving, or wine-making—I reacted by flying into a rage. How dare he want time
away from us? I would never put him in
that position. The boys, both under the age of five, needed me. I knew their
schedules and I didn’t want to give David my control—no matter how out of
control we were. Back then I didn’t understand who I was if I wasn’t their
mother. I needed them to make me feel whole.
I wished David could understand my outbursts, my grief. How
could he be so casual about Chase’s autism? How could we be so different? It caused
friction in our marriage. David didn’t fight me when I suggested marriage
counseling.
Our counselor praised us for staying together. She told us many
marriages fall apart when there is a disabled child, because each parent adjusts
in a different way. You can say that again! I learned most of our trouble
stemmed from the fact that we didn’t know each other well enough. It was true;
we had dated only six months before David proposed, and Chase was born a year after
we were married.
During one visit David and the counselor were talking about
his interest in wine. The more he described his new hobby, the more animated he
became. I grew anxious watching them. Why couldn’t I get that excited about something
new in my life? I needed to find an
interest of my own, something to remind me of who I had once been. I used to do
things I enjoyed.
Back then, I had spent too much time feeling sad about
Chase. We hid from others rather than go somewhere, like the park, because I
didn’t want to associate with “perfect” mothers and their “perfect”
children. I didn’t want to be stared at,
or judged, or even worse, be shunned, but I needed to get out of the house. I
needed to feel air and see light. I tried to remember the things that brought
me joy.
In school I had been a shy girl with few friends. I liked English
classes, especially when there had been writing involved, and I had kept a
journal for poetry. Writing, I could do alone. Writing engaged my mind, and
held my interest for hours while I searched for the right words to express my
thoughts.
Every semester the local college sent out a catalogue which
offered adult education courses. I usually thumbed through the catalogue and
put it aside, but one day I lingered over a writing course. What if I started
writing again? I could escape for a little while, get out of the house, get out
of my head, and allow myself a sliver of joy.
It occurred to me then that David and I could each bargain
for time alone.
