Susan Senator

Today my oldest boy is 16. This is always a very emotional day for me, I’m sure you parents out there can relate, particularly when it is your firstborn’s birthday.

At the beginning of my book I say,

The saddest day of the year for me is November 15, Nat’s birthday.

I want to begin this new year of Nat’s life by taking that back. I apologize to you, Nat. But your mom is still learning. Yes, the book has only been out 2 1/2 months and already I am editing it! But I have learned something new since the pub date. I guess it is in part thanks to the neurodiversity crowd and partly due to my own process that I am feeling so different today about Nat’s birthday than in previous years.

There were so many years where I would feel a blankness inside, an empty waiting, as November 15 unfolded. I would go through the motions of a mother preparing for a child’s birthday, all the while with a cloud following me around. Because I knew that none of it would have the meaning of “birthday” that I wanted it to have for him. To me, birthdays are the most fun day of the year. Until I left home at 17 for college, I would wake up on October 18 with my parents and sister and a pile of presents sitting at the foot of my bed. There’d be phone calls all day long from grandparents, cards would gather on the piano, and I’d feel like a queen. To this day, my parents and sister still make a huge fuss over birthdays, with singing into the phone and cards and presents.

So it took me a long time to adjust to the way Nat does birthdays. As a baby, Nat would stare wide-eyed at the brightly-colored boxes, and would not know what do do. I would rip the presents open for him, shout about what the present was, try to show him how to play with it, and wait. He would usually be interested in the wrapping paper. Or the box. Maybe he’d put the present in his mouth.

For years I would think about the big let-down for me, but I would not talk about it. It is only now that I realize, what a big let-down birthdays might have been for him! From his neurologically sensitive perspective, a sudden deluge of mysterious boxes, loud ripping of paper, shouting parents, new expectations — sounds like a precious bit of hell! And I won’t even go into the huge birthday parties I have thrown for him over the years.

Now I understand what a Nat birthday should be like: any other day, plus frosting. Maybe an orange balloon or two. Nothing wrapped. Cards — pretty much useless. New presents: stagger them, one a day, giving him time to absorb it.

And for me, there are no tears this year. No feeling of letdown. No heavy sighs for what might have been. I even played Melissa by the Allman Brothers, from Eat a Peach, which is the song that I was playing when I was about to give birth to Nat, the song that is sure to rip me to shreds around this time of year, because I remember my “innocent,” and “naive” self, the me who did not know what was coming.

Melissa has lost its power. I still love the song, but I am hearing it with a smile, remembering tiny Nat, fragile Nat, special Nat. There is nothing to mourn. He is himself, and always has been. No one has been stolen from me.

Thank you, Nathaniel Isaac (in Hebrew this means: “Gift of God,” and “he will laugh”), for being part of my life. It is all the richer because of you, Sweet Guy.

Here’s what we did to celebrate.