Susan Senator

Every now and then Nat tells us he would like to send an email — well, we ask him if he wants to and usually he says no. But today he wanted to. This was after we had a conversation about his new job, which is at a supermarket near his day program. Nat told us that he “used the computer” (and indeed, the job coach trained Nat in safety skills on the computer) and also that he put the carts “in the right order.” We asked him where he put the carts and he said, “in the cart,” which is also accurate; they get shoved one into the other, as we all know. (The reason I comment on accuracy is that in the past Nat has had default answers that he gives when he wants to get us off his back and stop talking to him. So often he would answer correctly but untruthfully. But when he is in the mood to communicate, he struggles to find the precise word he wants and you can depend on this being a recap of exactly what happened for him.  When he opens up to us like this, it takes my breath away — but never my words. I store it away and then I have to tell the world, write it on thy doorposts and upon thine gates, that this is a real person, with an entire inner life, and just a different way of living it or talking about it. That fact is of Biblical importance to me.)

Back to the conversation itself. He has also told us that Sean is his job coach. And Holly is his house manager. You will see in his email that each line is a separate paragraph, about a different topic!

The cool thing is that the whole conversation began with Ned asking Nat what was going on, and Nat replied, “Not much.” He is really learning how to converse the way we do, down to the silly small talk. (Chit chat is the true silly talk, not the self-talking Nat does, which actually has meaning!) But I think maybe emailing works for him because it is in a clear context: you are writing to someone, not simply for the sake of writing (after all, who in their right mind would write just for the sake of writing? Oh, yeah, never mind…)

And here is the email, which also talks about what he did today — he went to the swim qualifiers for the Special Olympic State Games which will happen in June. He won gold medals in all three of his events. He told us “lunch schedule,” and by that he meant, we should stick to the schedule and give him lunch after swimming.  It’s all there in the email. Read it for yourself, and see how much you can glean about Nat’s life these days.

How are you? Swmming lunch car gold medal.
House holly reeses bed shop mom
Shaws work cart candy computer tipe sean.
Im good love
Nat