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FIRST PERSON: AMY LENNARD GOEHNER
My
Son
I didn't know the world my friends with normal — or,
as we call them, typically developing — kids lived in
until recently. Two and a half years ago, my husband and I
adopted our second child, Joey. And as he has grown to be
a toddler, every milestone he has reached has been bittersweet--a
celebration but also a painful reminder of all the milestones
our 8-year-old son Nate has never reached.
Before Joey could even talk, he would point — as if
to say "Hey, Mom, look at that dog over there" — the
way kids do to engage you. I flashed back to the evaluation
forms we filled out for Nate when we were taking him to specialists.
One question that appeared on every form was "Does your child
point?" It's a major developmental step, a gesture that communicates
a child's desire to share something outside himself. Nate
never pointed.
When Nate was not talking by age 2, we took him to a big
New York City hospital to get him evaluated. The neurologist
gave us his diagnosis almost apologetically, in a very quiet
voice. I remember just two words: "Maybe autistic."
When I stopped crying, I went to my office and called everyone
I had ever met who was in any way connected to the world of
special-needs kids. We made a lot of mistakes before finding
the perfect match for Nate (and us): a wonderful speech therapist
whom we later dubbed our captain. When she met Nate, he was
nonverbal and running around her office like a self-propelled
buzz saw. She looked at us calmly and said, "Let's get busy.
We've got work to do."
We've been working ever since. In addition to continual
speech, behavior and occupational therapies, we have dabbled
in what one of our doctors called "the flavor of the week"
— vitamins and supplements and other "can't miss" cures.
We also shelled out a small fortune for every must-have tool
that Lori, Nate's occupational therapist, mentioned even casually,
including weighted vests (to help "ground" Nate) and special
CDs (to help desensitize him to loud sounds). "Every time
Lori opens her mouth, it cost me a hundred bucks," my husband
once said.
Recently I read Joey a picture book that contained illustrations
of fruit. Joey pretended to pick the fruit off the page and
eat it, offering me a bite. Again I flashed back to those
evaluation forms: "Does your child engage in pretend/imaginative
play?" Nate's idea of play is to drop sticks and small stones
into a drain at the playground. He could do this for hours
if we let him. Last week Joey took a long noodle from his
bowl of soup, dragged it across the table and said, "Look,
it's a train. There's the freight car." Then Nate took a noodle
from his soup. He tossed it onto the ceiling.
Yet maybe because I entered motherhood through the special-needs
world, I somehow feel more a part of it than I do the "normal"
one. The challenges in this world are greater, but the accomplishments
— those firsts — are that much sweeter.
The other day I heard Joey singing a song about trains,
and I realized that I couldn't remember the first time I heard
my second son sing. I just took it for granted. With Nate,
I never take anything for granted.
I remember that when Nate was 6, I was invited to hear his
class put on a concert. I had no idea what to expect, as Nate
doesn't sing. What he does do is make loud repetitive noises,
occasionally while rocking back and forth. But I went anyway.
And when the music teacher approached Nate and began to sing
a song Nate loved to listen to, Nate looked down, stared at
his hands and very quietly chimed in, "A ram sam sam, a ram
sam, gooly, gooly, gooly ... " The other moms rushed to hand
me tissues as tears streamed down my face. I was listening
to Nate sing. For the first time.
Goehner is head
arts reporter at Time
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