Susan Senator

Want to know how pathetic I am? I have been enjoying having Nat home sick. He doesn’t have the flu, thank God, but I guess some other much lesser thing that gave him a tiny fever yesterday and a huge cough. The nurse called me, and I got down there as soon as I could (I was downtown, finishing work). I had just emailed the school telling them that I wanted to know the moment he was sick so I could decide what to do. Of course he could have stayed at The House, and in fact he was there when I came in at 11 ish. They do round-the-clock care, and they mean it. A lovely young teacher was staying with him.

But in comes La Mother who scoops him up and takes him home. I’m just a girl who cain’t let go. First thing I did was feel his face: hot, but not scary hot. I sat him down and I made him hot cocoa, from scratch. I was totally in my element. He slurped it carefully while I made him a bagel, but I noticed he just picked at the bagel. His self talk (formerly known as “silly talk”) was a tiny croak.

“Nat, you don’t have to eat the bagel,” I said, knowing that he would need to be told that, and would not necessarily stop eating it on his own. (That, right there, is the disability: the apparent passiveness, the lack of self-awareness, despite the name for it: aut-ism, being unto oneself.)

“You don’t have to eat it, yes.” He said, and then I really knew he was sick. He went upstairs and lay down for a bit. When he came down again I had an idea: make him some tea that my yoga instructor friend brought me. She knows tea, for God’s sake. But Nat has never had tea. So I basically just dunked the chamomile-infused limp thing into the hot cup and then squirted in like three teaspoons of honey. Hot honey tea-like water! He sipped it carefully, self-talking with every gulp. I heard, at the end of one of the whispered self-talk phrases, “…coffee,” and I wanted to laugh. It was so good being able to take care of him, and to have him let me. I felt so close to him, closer than I have in a long time. It seems that my relationship to him is very much based on our physical proximity. I need the feedback to relate to someone; he does not. He’s lucky.

Anyway, Yay, he likes tea! I will now give him all the tea in China.