Susan Senator

These days remind me a bit of 1993, when I was dealing with Nat’s diagnosis. Nat was just three, and Max was almost one, and I had a job to do raising my little boys, but — . I had to learn all about autism, in a time when there was not much around to tell you. There were no yahoo groups, no blogs, no Internet supports or info. There were very few books, most people still thought autism was a rare occurrence, and most important of all: there was no one else in my life (apparently) who had it or whose kid had it.

I’m functioning but there’s also a part of me that’s loose and unsettled, unresolved. I worry so much about Nat. I worry that he’s sad. I worry that he doesn’t understand why he’s there, but that the aggression lately is because he is beginning to realize what it is. Does he think I’ve abandoned him?

Back then I had a sheaf of papers from the Autism Support Center in Danvers, which I had found in the phone book, by calling (of all things) 1-800-1Autism or something like that. The papers talked about how autism was a neurological condition, probably genetic, not my fault, and how it came in many different forms, but mostly was all about having some of three groups of issues. The papers also talked about how education would help, and what groups were in my area to offer support.

The best thing in years was going to that local ARC support group in Brighton, Mass., where I met parents of kids of all ages, and learned that Nat was not alone.

So now, the thing is, I know he’s not alone, and yet, I feel so sad for him living away from me, from his beloved house, his pale green bedroom, his sunny bay window, his bright-colored paper dragon that Mom brought him from China, the large oil painting that his first tutor had done of him, sucking his thumb (of course) and holding Floppy Bunny. His lunchbox, his afterschool snack.

My boys are growing up and right now it hurts hurts hurts.

I don’t have a group to go to. Maybe I do but I don’t want to. I don’t get much solace in groups, or other blogs, or books on autism. Ironic. But there it is. I am just in it, and that’s all. There’s not much to learn, there’s only to do.

I feel so bad about how I didn’t prepare him adequately for leaving. I did not even prepare myself adequately. I couldn’t have known what this would be like. I imagined it all very pragmatically, the way the House would be able to train him in this or that skill. The way he’d come home whenever I wanted him to. The way we would have less stress in our lives, yes, that is true, too. I would cry about this now but I am exhausted at the moment. I’m sick of crying, I’m sick of going to bed early and I’m sick of grief.

Everytime I write what it is that makes me so sad, I feel empty and like I wrote the wrong thing. This sadness I feel around Nat is a moving target, ever-shifting, and non-specific. This tells me that it is grief, pure and harsh. Ugly and complicated. Inevitable and inexorable.

He is 19 but he also seems much younger. I don’t know for sure what he understands, how he feels. He sounds sad on the phone. They tell me he’s not. I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s that I don’t know for sure, never have. I did not really get the chance to know, and now he’s moved out.