The Faces of Friendship

There you are in the grocery store, the face of kindness. My son is walking beside me as I push the cart and you walk quickly to catch up to us. You are shopping with your mom too. You call my son Tate by name and greet him enthusiastically. Tate mumbles a response, barely looking your direction and wanders on ahead. You tell me that you go to school with him and when I thank you for speaking to him so nicely and I try to make an excuse for his lack of interest in you, you say, “Oh I know. That’s just how he is.” You call, “See you at school Monday Tate!” and as you walk away, my heart sings knowing there are peers like you who genuinely like my son for who he is, autism and all.

There you are in the school auditorium, the face of consideration. My son and I are attending his sister’s school play. We find our seats in the school’s auditorium. You come, dragging your mom by the hand, and sit beside Tate. You speak to him and introduce him to your mom. I ask Tate to introduce me to his friend. He says he does not know your name. I cringe inside but smile, hoping you understand. I tell you that Tate has trouble matching faces and names. You tell me you already know that, assure me it’s okay, and you politely introduce yourself and your mother to me. You try your best to engage Tate in conversation and you make a little progress, while your mom and I listen and make a little small talk over the tops of your heads. I am very impressed and thankful my son is learning social skills from peers like you.

I am at the Junior High school, sitting in seventh grade Science class. I've been invited by your teacher to hear Tate give his presentation on the solar system. You are there, so many of you! You are the faces of encouragement. Tate stands in front of you proudly, a big smile on his face. It never occurs to him that you might not be impressed with his modified school work or the presentation his Paraprofessional helped him to put together. Your presentations were much more detailed and they were done independently but you show Tate the same courtesy you showed the peer that presented before him and the one who comes after. My heart melts knowing you respect my son and make him feel like a part of your class regardless of his abilities. I so appreciate you!

There you are in a department store, the face of compassion. I’m out shopping and feel eyes on me. I look over to see you smile and you ask, “Are you Tate’s mom?” I say that I am and you ask me where he is. I tell you he is home. You tell me you eat lunch with Tate sometimes. I tell you how much it means to Tate’s family to know the kids at school are so kind to him. You smile and tell me it is fun to eat lunch with Tate. You add that you have learned more from being Tate’s friend than he has learned from you. I ponder this, as I know Tate is not what most kids would consider “fun” or is he able to do the classwork that the rest of you can do. He is hard to converse with, sometimes seems rude, he does not understand social cues, and he performs below grade level in every subject. But you know that. You know how he struggles to understand friendship yet how much he needs friends. You know how he struggles to process language, especially when it is spoken quickly. You are willing to be the kind of friend a kid with autism needs, a friend who has to give more than they receive, a friend who has to slow down and give Tate time to process before he can respond. And you are okay with that. My heart swells with gratitude.

This evening I need to find the face of understanding. We have come to a music program. Tate is to sing with his classmates. I hoped you would be here at the entrance to the school and I see you walking in right ahead of us. I stop you and ask you if you know where Tate should go to find his group. You tell me you know exactly where to go and you say, “Come on Tate. Follow me.” I call to you as you disappear into the crowd, “Thank you!” I feel blessed and relieved to be a part of this community where I can find these willing faces all around us.

I see you at a school picnic, the faces of acceptance. Tate’s class voted and chose to go fishing at a lake as their end-of-the-year-event. We considered skipping it because Tate is not interested in fishing at all. He does not like to get dirty and I figure he will most likely spend the evening asking us how much longer we have to stay. We decided he should go and as our family pulls up to the lake, several of you approach our van, calling Tate’s name and asking him to hurry and join you. He says, “My friends are here.” He follows you to the gathering and we bring up the rear. My heart smiles at the knowledge that my son has friends. He has friends and he is accepted, autism and all.

As a part of the autism community I often hear of prejudice, intolerance, hate and bullying. We’ve seen very few of those things in my son’s life. Perhaps it is because we have been open about his autism diagnosis since kindergarten. Perhaps it is because we made sure his classmates were educated about autism. Perhaps it is because of the lunch buddy program and the other social coaching programs his peers have participated in with him. Perhaps it is because we live in a small town and a close-knit community. Perhaps we just got lucky and my son has a class of exceptionally caring peers whose parents have taught them about friendship, kindness, consideration, encouragement, respect, compassion, understanding and acceptance. Perhaps it is a combination of all of these things. 

If you liked this post, you might like to read Building Tate's Friendships.

The Memory That Does Not Fade

I remember the day my precious little boy was diagnosed with autism. Portions of that day have faded but much of it runs in a loop I can play in my mind over and over. I remember the phone call I placed that morning, in a panic, asking if I could get “right in” to see the pediatrician I trusted. I remember the receptionist asking me what symptoms my child was having and I remember telling her my suspicions. I remember the difficulty I had putting those words together and speaking them out loud. I remember her telling me that I could bring him in almost immediately. I remember picking my little boy up and putting him in his car seat, handing him his cloth diaper to hold; and I remember driving the thirty minutes to our appointment time. I prayed the whole way that I was wrong; that what I had found on the Internet during the night was not what Tate would be diagnosed with.

Autism: it had been in the back of my mind for months but I had not seriously considered it. I had not said the word autism and meant it before that; but after putting Tate to bed the evening before, and lying next to him, I had been forced to face the reality that something was wrong. Something was not just “a little off” but something was REALLY terribly wrong. I remember lying next to Tate. He was whispering to someone or something that only he could see. His words were not really words anymore but gibberish. He seemed to know what he was saying but no one else did and it did not matter to him. What had happened to all the language he used to have? Why didn’t he talk to me anymore? What language was he speaking and whom was he speaking to? Where had my little boy gone? I remember getting up out of the bed. I remember that Shawn was snoring. I remember going into the study and googling “mental illness in children.”. After hearing the strange language and the whispering he seemed to be doing to invisible beings, I was sure my little boy must have a mental illness. I remember the hard-backed chair I was sitting in at the desk. I remember typing in the symptoms I had been noting and the things I had been questioning in the weeks leading up to that night. I remember when the word “autism” came upon the screen. I remember taking a test and scoring Tate, afraid to read the results. I remember the first time I ever saw “PDD-NOS” and learned that there were different kinds of autism. I remember running to the bathroom to be sick, tears running down my face. I remember waking Shawn and asking him to come and read the things I had found. I remember Shawn reading, looking at the test I had found and calmly telling me he thought I had just accurately diagnosed Tate. I remember Shawn eventually going back to bed and I remember sitting at the computer the rest of the night shivering, reading, and crying, wondering and worrying.

Our appointment with the pediatrician was set for 11:00. I remember. I had called at 9:00 and the sympathetic girl on the other end of the line had told me to be there at 11:00. I don’t know what I would have done if they had put me off for a day or two. I remember thinking that over and over, “Thank goodness they let me come right away.” I remember sitting in the waiting room. There is a waiting area for well patients and a separate waiting area for the patients who are sick. We waited on the well side and I wished we were only there for an ear infection or a cough. Normally, I hated sitting on the “sick side” amongst the germs. I would have given anything to switch sides that day. I remember the nurse who called us back and I remember sitting in the patient room. I remember which room, in the maze of rooms in that practice, we used that day. Tate sat on the carpeted floor. There were some neat trucks in the room that my other children had often played with. Tate ignored them. His cloth diaper was much more interesting to him. I had brought Tate’s three favorite things with us. I wanted the doctor to see them. He had a cloth diaper, a small set of beads on a blue wire that twisted and turned, and a hardback novel about two inches thick. I cannot remember the name of the book but I believe it had a green cloth cover. Tate could not read it of course, but he loved that book. He would sit with it on his lap and fan the pages of that book for 20 to 30 minutes at a time.

I remember the doctor coming into the room. The door of the room was one that slid on rails instead of opening on hinges. Dr. Loveland, he always called himself “Dr. Chuck” when he spoke to the kids, asked me why I had come. I said, “I think there is something wrong with my baby” and I began to cry. Dr. Loveland handed me a tissue and stood next to me and watched Tate “play.” We watched as Tate tossed his cloth diaper into the air over and over, watching it drop. Tate did not look up and acknowledge the doctor or notice that I was crying. He just tossed that diaper up in the air and watched it fall. I told the doctor that it was Tate’s favorite activity. Dr. Loveland asked, “What do you think?” and I said, “I think he has autism.” Dr. Loveland’s exact words were, “I suspect you are right.” I remember them clearly. He stood and watched Tate and waited quietly until I could talk and then he asked me what kinds of questions I had for him. I remember asking, “What do I do?” and him promising me he would make sure I got all the right phone numbers and contact information for people who could help me. I remember him telling me that I would need to take Tate to a developmental pediatrician for an official diagnosis. I remember asking him what our future would be like and what would happen when Tate was grown. I do not remember his exact words but I do remember that Dr. Loveland did not lie to me. He was very compassionate when he told me that the future would be somewhat limited for Tate. He told me that he had many teenaged and young adult patients with autism and oftentimes parents had to hire help when they were older and their children became adults.

I remember leaving that appointment with a very heavy heart. But I also remember the phone ringing soon after I got home and Dr. Loveland’s nurse making recommendations and giving me phone numbers to call for information and services. I did not feel alone or abandoned. I was not ever treated with anything except compassion and kindness. So many parents with children diagnosed with autism have horrible stories to tell about the way they were told their children have autism or how the doctor treated them. I have nothing but nice things to say about the pediatrician and the people he referred me to.

It is possible that more and more of that day all those years ago will fade from my memory as more time passes. But, I somehow doubt that I will ever forget the compassionate doctor who helped me take my first step into the world of autism. I am so glad it was Dr. Loveland standing beside me that day. Dr. Loveland passed away recently and he will be missed. He was a great man and I am thankful he was in our life. 

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This is a post called: What is Autism or Why Does Tate Act That Way? This is another post about our experience with a great practice of pediatricians: Why I Still Get the Recommended Immunizations