Yesterday afternoon I sat in a dark movie theater, watching a movie about a woman coming to terms with life transformations: she was grieving and loving and grieving and having a-ha's left and right and later in the day her computer would come out and we would see her, writing about it.
I was sitting next to my daughter, lazily watching - when I felt tears fill my eyes which had nothing to do with the movie.
"Sam, I hold Sam in my hand. This is why my writing veered off in his direction this morning. I need to write more of Sam."
My son, Samuel, had showed up in this morning's free write which had a prompt, "My hand holds..." and I very literally wrote, "my pencil..." and then seemed to hit a tangent.
I am facilitating a writing group called "And Now You Write" which include daily writing prompts. I sometimes write along with the group or on days like today, I pre-wrote from the lesson. I prepared the lesson ahead of time and while Samuel and I were waiting for the school bus, I wrote.. and without any effort the pencil in my hand turned toward Samuel.

In the dark movie theater, I remembered and I cried more.
I write about Samuel at about the same frequency as I write about my daughters.
I just have a tendency to leave out the part about his autism. Something with this sort of an impact on his life and on my heart seems like a natural for frequent, emotional writing that reaches out from my heart to others hearts, doesn't it?
I sound like I'm trying to convince myself of the importance of writing about this and I seem to be hiding behind the sand dunes which gather alongside the River Denial.
I sit down with my notebook again in the early morning pre-sunrise light to hold Samuel in my hand again.
I think of Samuel silently putting his hand on my shoulder in those moments when language is either unnecessary or it won't come or a simple touch means so much more than a bouquet of nouns, verbs and punctuation marks.
My pen followed its tendency to stop when I bump into something that has the weighty quality labeled "important" so I make a list, instead.
My hand holds Samuel so I will feel better.
My hand holds Samuel to understand him more.
My hand holds Samuel to be a better advocate.
I don't use my hand to write about Samuel because I feel like its a betrayal somehow. That it will hurt him. That I'll get all Jenny McCarthied out and become so annoying to my friends with neurotypical kids or friends who don't have friends that I'll write my way into being completely alone which is, ofcourse, right there in my top three fears.
I have this crazy image of Sam and me, when I am old in a parched desert. I have a tin can in my hand, waiting for a mule or camel train to pass by. "Please, sir, I want some more..." I mutter with a bad English accent, doing my best to be suitably Dickensian. My speech is incoherent babble and my writing has evaporated in the glaring sun.
No wonder I don't write about it if this is the vision I have.
What would happen if I changed the story?
Now that I have discovered a portion of what is there, what if I opted to move Sam and me out of the desert and face toward the light coming from transforming the planet and its people, many of whom are, like Samuel neurologically atypical.
Once again there was too much oomph to bear immediately so my pencil opted to work on an unrelated poem.
I find the word journey fascinating though, especially when I take the time to witness myself from outside myself. My inner battle to write about Samuel in relationship to autistic spectrum disorder harkens back to the days of being a special needs sibling myself. My brother, John, had Down's Syndrome. This fact had an enormous impact on my life, both overwhelmingly positive and at times, painfully negative.
Right after receiving the dagger of Samuel's diagnosis I cried not only for him, but for my daughters who would now bear the same status as "sibling of a special needs child." It isn't easy. I didn't want a life with that label for them. I knew what that could be like and I didn't want this aspect of my life reflected in my girls' lives.
Yesterday Emma was saying, "Samuel learned so much of his autism stuff from me. It is my fault."

Yes, he learns from her. No, he is not on the spectrum because of her any more than John had Down's Syndrome because of me. These disorders simply are and Samuel and John just are what they are because of the diagnoses.
This writing feels woefully unfinished and yet, I feel as if I need to speak these words, write these words into form and, perhaps, come back to them later when the fruit of their message is ready for harvest.
I wonder how this story connects with you?
I would enjoy hearing from you, I would enjoy knowing.
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© 2011
Julie Jordan Scott
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