Sunday, June 3, 2012

Graduation Thoughts

My son Ian graduated yesterday from Chiawana High School in Pasco, WA.  It was a hot morning, and the sun glared down on the crowds of parents, grandparents and other family and friends as we sat outside in the football stadium waiting for our children to march in, wearing cap, gown and grin.  The same scenario was being played out all over the Tri Cities this weekend, and all over the country during the last few weeks and in the next few weeks to come.  From the smallest of kindergarten graduates, to the loftiest of college commencements, the ceremonies were all pretty much the same.  People marking a passing from one part of their life completed, and looking forward to the unknown future.  A lot of pomp and circumstance and speeches about changing the world.  It's pretty cool if your kid's head is under one of those mortar boards.  It can bring tears to your eyes.  Tears of joy certainly, but also tears for the little one you raised who isn't very little anymore.  In my case, or rather, in Ian's case, my tears were for both of these things, but also for other emotions.... a little regret, and a lot of uncertainty.

Ian is twenty one years old.  A little over the normal age of a high school graduate, but then Ian isn't your average high school grad.  Ian is autistic.  Not the quirky, asocial, Aspberger-y condition you see in TV characters like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory (although I love Sheldon), who manage to live with and work with their condition.  Ian is autistic, plain and simple.  There's no sugar coating on his diagnosis.  He can speak when he wants to ask for something, or when he reads, but that language doesn't cross into the realm of conversation.  He'll never sit down and ask how your day went.  (I guess Sheldon doesn't do that either.)  But he can ask for crackers or ice cream or to go outside, or to have somebody fix his computer. This is much more language than we ever expected when we were told our not quite 2 year old, who had lost his little bit of language and was only jibber-jabbering while he flapped his hands, was autistic.

This was in 1993.  Autism had yet to become the huge diagnostic umbrella, almost trendy thing is is now.  I guess we were in the vanguard, though we didn't know it.  At the time it felt like a death sentence.  It wasn't.  Though it is a life sentence.  Not sure if I appreciated the difference back then.  Even now, when I see people talk about the leaps and bounds their kids with autism have made with this therapy or that treatment, I get a little cranky and wonder how autistic their child really was. I resent the widening of that umbrella that now included kids into a club that I hardly recognize anymore.  I see so many people spotlighted who are considered autistic and are so higher functioning than my son I wonder how it can even be the same disorder.  My kid will never take those huge leaps.  He had to be satisfied with baby steps.

Graduation is a time to look ahead, but also a time to mark milestones.  Ian's milestones may not seem like such to most people.  In fact the only people who can even begin to appreciate them are our family and the friends who were an integral part of his growing up and helped him in more way than I can express.  But as I heard the familiar music playing and found Ian in the crowd of caps and gown, walking with his aid and the rest of the graduates, my mind flashed back to many things.

I see a little face with big eyes and a gap-toothed grin that could reach ear to ear, but could also go on a crying jag that could last for hours.  I see diapers til he was 6 years old, but also the sudden joy of underwear.  I see Disney movie after Disney movie and jigsaw puzzles put together upside down, without the picture showing.  I see locks on my windows to keep him from getting out of the house, but I see the absolute joy he had in running, swinging, swimming.  I see temper tantrums, kicking and screaming, but I also see the happy boy who lives in my house today.  I see doctors I wanted to smack and insurance companies whose rich execs will probably spend some time in hell for not paying for treatments of things they couldn't "cure."  But I see loving, patient teachers and aids who worked for far less money than they deserved to get my son to behave, to read, to play with others, to laugh and be happy.

So now, as Ian graduates and has reached the point in his life where public school no longer has any obligation to educate him, I'm left wondering "what now?"  In this day of financial uncertainty, when government can no longer just pay for anything and everything, there is no money to continue my son's training.  I don't know what will come next for Ian.  But then does any parent really know what comes next for their child?  I suppose, in that regard, I'm not much different than the rest of the parents who sat and sizzled in the sun yesterday morning.  We were proud, we were sad, we were a little afraid.


1 comment:

The Westbrooks said...

Oh Jill! I just love your Ian. You may think you have him with you in WA, but in reality, he lives in my heart. I'm so proud of him for graduating & growing up! He's such a wonderful boy and I'm privileged to have known him!