04/15/2024 - Age of Autism
| An Autism Lament 16 Years Later |
This dark poem appeared on Age of Autism in 2008. Here we are, 16 years later, half way through Autism month, and the author has even more worry than she did so many years ago. As do we all. April is Autism Agony Month for many. Oh, and your taxes are due.
Autism Twins
My son was kidnapped at shotpoint.
A twin left in his place.
A weaker body.
A shadow self.
He is a sweet, sadder child,
who tantrums and screams and rolls on the ground.
Who is scared. In pain.
Mourning who he used to be.
I can see this in his eyes.
He misses having a body that works.
And he misses his laser-fast brain
And chuckling at his own jokes.
He used to work the room
A little politician
Grinning at everyone he saw.
Playing tug of war with the dogs
Experimenting with the piano
Piano and dogs now, he leaves,
utterly alone.
And when I spend too much
Love and dollars and time
to free him,
Am I forgetting
The one who is left
Who is still here
Who needs to just be
A child
sometimes?
He needs me
to stop mourning,
He needs me to celebrate him
and I do, I do celebrate him.
If this is all he can ever be, it's enough, and I love him forever, still.
But how can I stop mourning, and how can I stop trying to rescue him,
When his struggles remind me of his missing self.
He is his own shadow.
Is his twin disappeared, forever?
Or is he still there?
Locked in a neuron forest in his own brain.
If he is gone forever, unsaveable, dead,
How do I know for sure?
If he is gone forever,
I need to move on.
I need to let go.
I need to embrace what IS.
But when I embrace what is,
And accept that this may be all he can be,
And let him roll aimlessly on the sand
And cancel therapy for today
putting the flashlight down for a while
who else will carry on the search?
He does something startling.
He's back for a moment.
A glimpse!--is that his twin, over there, hiding behind that last tree in the grove?
the tree I was too tired to walk to a moment ago?
Will we find him again
in the therapy I didn't try?
the supplement I forgot to give?
the new idea even I scoffed at?
what if we give up one moment too soon
the moment right before
we were about to find him?
