A haven in the library

October 23, 2001
I went to the ballet tonight. It was very good. The dancers were very young, very talented, very versatile and very emotional. All incredible plusses. Seated next to me was a couple. The husband is a colleague of my husband. I had not seen them in perhaps 3 years. They asked about Jeffrey. How old, how , how how....? There are no questions which bridge the gaps of autism and the isolation.

I said, “We go to the library every day. It is the only place we can go safely.”

A visiting European administrator was seated with them. "And is your husband going to the program next year?" she asked. Next year. that is 365 days, 365 traumas, 365 nights of Jeffrey going to bed and bouncing on the mattress for an hour, or getting up to ask about Daddy if he is not yet home, or if he is, me, hiding in the other bedroom trying to pretend that I can go to sleep. I cannot envision a YEAR. It is too long. I might have broken. “Oh, a lot depends upon our son,” I said.

“Can’t he come with you?” she asked.
Perhaps my expression alerted her; perhaps the steam was coming out of my ears as in the old cartoons. And I stupidly attempted to explain, or qualify. “The only place we can go is the library.”

And in the safety of the library I have been asked, “Do you believe that God cures disabilities?”
I was literally speechless. There was no air coming in or out of my lungs. Jeffrey was sitting on the floor where I had signed for him to sit, after he attempted to push the person in front of him in the check-out line. He was very close to "out of control". I must have remembered to breathe.
I remember the answer. “I think God gives us the strength to do the best we can.”

“But you don’t think that God cures disabilities?” Was this woman totally unaware?
“No.”
It was time to check out our videos.
I did not turn around again.

I did not know then that life would settle in the next ten years. That we would gradually come out of the combat zone into a battered peace, and a companionship that allowed me to see a disability as an opening in perception of the wonders and mysteries of our deeper connections. That gift of compassion and love is special.
No, I could not see that then. . .

I know it now.

The bright looks of engagement and concentration in his world.