Today Something Changed

Every few weeks in life with Jeffrey, something happens that I think I should write down.  Often it’s something that is so cool that he said or that he can now do.  It can be something I experienced with him myself or that one of his constellation of friends and professionals shared with me.   Periodically, it’s something that happened out in the community that shined on how much Jeffrey can bring out the best in others.

Today something changed.  I woke up still unsettled by a passage in a book I’m reading, Wonder, about Auggie, a boy with a rare condition which results in a very unusual facial form.  Jack, a school-mate of Auggie’s, recounts the first time he saw Auggie on a bench when they were very young.  Jack and his toddler brother were shocked and scared when they saw Auggie, and their babysitter reacted by taking the boys from the bench before they could give any reaction.  After the incident, she laments that she reacted that way, because it must have just caused more sadness for the little boy in seeing others flee from him.

Before Jeffrey sprouted into a young man about 18 months ago, he could still pass off as a boy — very tall, but a boy whose daily antics could be often explained even to strangers after indicating that he has autism and can be very impulsive and loud.  I would say, “he’s my Curious George” — such a happy guy, hard to understand, followed by “Jeffrey, you can say hi”.

But  now Jeffrey is a solid 6 foot plus and larger than life.  Although he’s not quite seventeen, his voice is low and his legs are solid and his laughter and singing aren’t cute to everyone anymore.   It has taken some fairly crazy incidents in our life for me to realize that Jeffrey ‘is’ scary.  Not to me, not to his constellation community of friends and professionals, not to those who understand deeply that typical is only relative.  To the every day kid and adult, Jeffrey is scary.

There.  I said it.  I wrote it down.  Now it’s real.  It’s not the reason I wanted to start writing down my Jeffrey stories and ideas.  But it’s why I have to start writing things down.

Today something changed.  And the fire within me to figure out how to help more of the world, at least in our community, see that ‘typical’ isn’t.  We all have special needs.  We all are unique.  We all can be scary to others. We can all choose to be open and see ‘different’, and not scary at all.