Maine native and astronaut Jessica Meir has realized her childhood dream, working for a six-month stint at the International Space Station. In a few days my son, Chase, will also realize his dreams and leave home for his own apartment, to be shared with his girlfriend of three years.
As with Jessica Meir, this is not the ordinary outcome of an ordinary effort; my son has autism. When he was diagnosed at the age of 2, I tearfully asked the neurologist if he would ever be independent. What little I understood about the disorder made me fear the worst.
The words of the neurologist were both a reassurance and a challenge; there was much to hope for, but it would be very hard work.
I see that toddler still, his luminous green eyes, his smile to beat the band, his affectionate nature that nevertheless did not admit intervention easily. As we worked to reach him, lines from a poem haunted me with their poignancy: “Failing to fetch me, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another; I stopped somewhere, waiting for you.”
Many true believers worked with Chase: Susan, Kathy and Faith at Children’s Odyssey; Gerry, his devoted developmental therapist; our wonderful pediatrician, and Dr. Carol Hubbard, pediatric developmental specialist.
There were teachers who rose to the challenge of assimilating my son in their classrooms, one-on-one aides who welcomed him into their homes, and Chase’s peers, who mostly embraced him as one of their own.
And there were, too, a few unbelievers, who broke my heart with their disbelief; the school administrator who dismissed Chase’s and my dreams, telling me “the world needs ditch diggers, too”; a supposed friend who didn’t want my son to play with her own child, a French teacher who opined Chase wouldn’t gain anything from her attention on the day after I overheard him sing his first song ever – in French.
I look back through the years, and again watch my son exercise feats of memory, compensating for teaching techniques that sometimes missed the mark. I hear him explain how the disabled were like the Third Estate of the French Revolution, fighting for their rights. I see him master Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalk,” inspiring his classmates to vote him “Best Dancer” of the senior class, and I see him at his high school graduation, hard-earned diploma in hand.
I remember the tears, too; Chase’s exhaustion that sometimes necessitated picking him up from school early; his grief when his best friend drifted away; his despair over ever finding true love. I remember my own fears, that the world wouldn’t recognize my son’s potential, and that his dreams would not be realized.
Jessica Meir looks down upon the wonders of the Earth and marvels; I look upon my son, who is my world, and marvel, too. They dreamed, they lifted off – and they make us proud.
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