Susan Senator

I went to give a talk at the Barber Institute in Erie, Pennsylvania. There were about 180 enthusiastic parents, board members, education professionals and other staff people there to hear me give my “What’s Disability Got to Do With it?” talk. I really enjoyed the event, as I almost always do these kind of things.

But the best thing about the two days I was gone was Benji. Apparently when Ned went to pick him up from school he said, “I miss Mommy.” Probably most of you reading this are thinking, “That’s nice, but so what? He’s a little kid!” Well then you don’t know Benji. Benji never expresses vulnerable emotions. He has always been “sugar and spike,” cute as a button but as cuddly as a porcupine. You go to hug him and he turns around so he has his back to you. You say, “I love you, Little B,” and he says, “Yeah, I know,” sounding bored with the whole thing. I had long ago resigned myself to having yet another boy in my life for whom I have to guess his emotional state; moreover, for whom I had to take his love for me on faith. Obviously Nat is similar, in that he has autism and cannot express these kinds of feelings for me or to me. And Max is a fourteen-year-old boy, and the last thing on his mind is making his mom feel good and needed.

I have a lot of good friends as well as very intensely affectionate and expressive parents, and I have my writing as an escape. I wrap myself in all of them when I need to feel a rush.

But when Ned told me on the phone how Ben lit up when he saw my car in the driveway, and mistakenly thought I was home, (“Mommy’s home!”) I almost got on a plane to come home there and then. It was only then that I realized just how much I crave my kids’ open affection, and how rarely I get it.

So on the little propeller plane ride from Erie to Cleveland, Ben was on my mind. He was especially on my mind as the plane dipped, bumped, dropped, and creaked in the thick white clouds. I looked around, fearfully, and thought for a split second, “This is what heaven would look like if we crashed.” And then I thought, “Oh, God, we better not crash! Not with Benji now having had his heart opened up a tiny bit!” In my mind, I begged God to get me home to Ben, and I kept his little finely drawn face right in front of me the whole way.

And here I am. I rushed to the school to pick him up, grabbed him and kissed him, and he said, “Mom! PUT ME DOWN!”
I said, “Benj! I’m here! I missed you so much!”
He said, “I know,” and turned his back to me, collecting his school papers.

Back home again.