“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, with a frowny-face. Her response annoyed me, as he is very healthy.
I cocked my head and looked at her, then said, “Oh, well, it can be hard.” I made sense of it by considering her to understand how challenging autism can be and simultaneously thinking, “We don’t need your fucking pity bitch.”
I met a 20 year old patient at a clinic, who said she was going into education for kids with special needs. “People with developmental disabilities are the new, unspoken for minority,” she explained.
“That’s great,” I told her, “I’m quite familiar with that, because my nephew has autism.”
“Autism, cool.” She smiled.
I smiled too. Is it cool that my nephew has autism? In general, no, but my nephew is a mighty cool seven year old. “Kinda immature response,” I thought. Life would be easier for my family, and likely for him too, if autism was less a part of who he is. But my smile was genuine. I thought about all the things I love about my nephew, his odd nuzzling, his repeated exuberant exclamations in line at Costco, (“No, not the lady!” when we hand something he picked out to the cashier, or "No, don't do it!" if we do something he disagrees with), his predilection for gas stations and chain restaurants. “Cool” made me feel good, and I understood it as celebrating him rather than pitying his difference. I preferred that reaction by far, to “I’m sorry".
3 comments:
Both my kids (not cats but I wonder about them) fall into the Autism Spectrum (Asperbergers ... always spell it wrong) and you know what? We spent the afternoon with a boy from My oldest class that also falls into it... and we had an awesome day. I even got an insite to how Ben and Jerry came up with some of their cool ice cream names (while listening to the children banter about pizza names).
let the idiots throw their shallow punches because they honestly don't know the half of what they are missing and their "normal" kids will never touch our retarded babies intelligence! (yea, sorry, a Sarah P dig...)
There's actually a book called, "All cats have asperger's"
"http://www.amazon.com/All-Cats-Have-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1843104814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300423293&sr=8-1
I've been reading a book called "Running with Walker."
http://www.amazon.com/Running-Walker-Memoir-Robert-Hughes/dp/1843107554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300423356&sr=1-1
which is a memoir about this very problem.
Sounds like a great day with your kids.
awesome. I added them to my cart. just what we need, lol, more books (got 7 today at the local book store on various silly things.) sigh. THANKS!
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