Translated…
Last month, as I’d gone to an elder’s home to wish them a happy New Year, I’d bumped into the elder’s subordinate who took his wife and three kids along, to visit, as I’d entered into the house, I saw two of the kids, with their heads, lowered, focused on the cell phones next to the parents, and the older boy, he’d had a grin, paced back and forth, talking in sounds that I couldn’t comprehend, and by the way he looked, we knew, that he was a special needs child; his parents kept apologizing to us, said that he was a special needs child, that they’d hoped, that I wouldn’t mind him at all. At that moment, other than encouraging the parents, I’d also felt, very awful, it’s hard enough, having a child with special needs at home, the parents are already, very stressed, and why, would they need to, apologize for his behalf, like he’d done something wrong in public?
not my photograph…
The child’s father took him to the bathroom, and changed him into another shirt, said that his son would feel better this way, and I’d continued my conversation with the child’s mother, she’d mentioned how her son was autistic, but, the handicaps he had in his life are so distance from his advantages, he couldn’t be school in the regular special education schools, so, the parents decided, to home school hi. As I’d heard his mother talked of his advantages, I’d become, curious, what would this kid that’s before me, have the advantage over? His mother told me slowly, turns out, that at the age of two, this child was diagnosed by a physician as autistic, he couldn’t communicate with others verbally, and couldn’t control his own emotional outbursts either, and so, his parents kept treating him as “an ordinary kind of special” child, and can only guess at what he was thinking about, but not communicate with him at all.
Until one day, an observant friend told them, that this child’s eyes are always, filled with a light and focused, that he’s definitely not, an ordinary special needs child, that, was when his mother sought out the experts, and, she’d finally, used the suggestions that the experts gave to her, keyed in the words that she’d wanted to say to her son. His mother told me, “the very first time I’d typed out: do you have something to say to the family?”, I was, truly nervous, he’d not responded, it’d made me so upset, that I’d almost, melted down. Later on, I thought, maybe, I’d asked such a generalized question that he’d not known how to answer, and so, I’d changed the question, “Do you have something you want to tell dad?”, and, he’d slowly, keyed out, “I’m just like any normal child, pleases love me just as deeply!”, hearing up to here, I’d felt that surge of emotion, tears streamed down his mother’s face too. And, just like so, his mother started submitting his writings into the papers, and posted his writings onto the blogs too, and started this “slow-to-talk” adolescent boy’s literary creation, and, he’d won a couple of writing awards, as well as the accolades from the society too.
“Happiness will now, show up, in my mother’s light smiles, alongside the held-back tears that were, circling in her eyes.”, these, were the words from one of his essays, his mother was still in tears, when she’d spoken to me, and, as the whole family got up to say goodbye, the child was throwing his temper tantrum, because he didn’t get to finish the drawing he was working on, his mother consoled with him gently, and at this time, I’d read to the segment in his essay that had, “My agitation is my way, of letting my annoyances calming down, can I, use the knowledge I’d picked up, to override my abnormal mind? To trick the incapable self too?”, I wish him the best!
not my photograph…
So, this autistic teenage boy has a different way of relating to the world, and, the narrator of this story observed it, and, the parents of this teen worked long and hard, to find a way, for their son, to connect to the world, and, it’s through writing, that the keys to unlock his mind that they’d found, and, the boy, although still may have his emotional outbursts, at least, his parents are tolerant of him, and they will surely, help him discover himself as he grows older I’m sure.