I missed it
As soon as Kevin leaves the room, Riley slips through the open door and flops on the sofa beside me, hairbrush in one hand, all that hair still dark wet and snarled, swinging against her back and scattering droplets. Immediately I notice her red-rimmed eyes, but choose not to say anything at first, carefully sliding a bookmark over the pages of the book in my lap before reluctantly closing it.
“What’s up?” I ask. Even though I already know what has left her bruised, I ask because I also know she needs to tell me. And I want her to tell me, to invite me in so we can wade into it again together, so I can help her find the way out. I know she waited until this moment when Kevin left the room; I know she’s depending now on my tenderness.
“I missed it,” she says mournfully, with something like a swoon, suddenly burying her eyes in my chest, which at her age and height takes an uncomfortable and awkward amount of twisting, even with us sitting side by side. But nothing moves any of us to childlikeness quite like the acknowledgement of our own childishness, and I have been where she is time and again, humbled by and confessing the consequences of my own shortsightedness.
“I know,” I say simply, feeling heartbroken for her over those words. I missed it; what an awful realization! Even so, the discomfort of training helps us grow, and grow she must. No discipline is enjoyable at the time, but later, it produces a peaceful harvest (Hebrews 12:11). I want to erase her disappointment, but then I remember how much she needs this.
If we summarize human love languages into Chapman’s Five, Riley’s primary love language must be quality time, though as someone who majors in love, she’s more fluent in all five languages than anyone else I’ve ever known. As a young woman with autism, Riley breaks all the loner stereotypes, preferring to do everything possible in the company of others. Knowing this, we are purposeful in planning time to together with the kind of predictable regularity Riley prefers. She loves to snuggle up next to me in our favorite chair for a little while, so most evenings, Kevin and I linger in the living room with her to watch a home improvement show (her favorite) or two. The time together is important for all of us. Riley needs that time; she looks forward to it; it seems unique in the way it fuels her tank.
But at the same time, when it comes to the use of her time, Riley struggles to prioritize. As much as she loves and needs that time with us, she doesn’t always plan well for it. She feels the significance of the opportunity, craves the fruit of it deeply, but doesn’t always make choices that reflect what she knows she wants and needs most. Sometimes Riley neglects important goals in favor of instant gratification, falling prey to a whole host of distractions. She’s held captive by time and responsibility and obsessive-compulsive behaviors that slow her down.
Sound familiar? It is to me.
See, I could blame this problem on autism, because the same misfiring in Riley’s brain that makes it impossible for her to prioritize sensory information also certainly short circuits her ability to prioritize tasks. She thinks and works linearly and literally, resists changes unless we write them into her schedule, and lacks any intuition to respond when adjustments to her routine would create better outcomes. And yet, Riley’s personal obsessions overwhelm even the rigidness that classically plagues people with autism. When it temporarily soothes some compulsive hunger, she will allow herself to drift from pre-programmed thinking. Every legalist adopts at least a few self-serving loopholes.
I could blame autism for the strength of the obsessions that derail her and do, but then, on what do I blame my own similar struggles? In so many ways, my disconnects compare to hers, and just like her, I have lived as though I have little other choice, no less baffled than she is to stare down my freedom. I hide my eyes too.
“We talked about this,” I say, laying a gentle hand on her back, “do you remember?” Sometimes it’s like this: I speak the Spirit’s words to me right back over my children.
“Mmmhmm,” she says, the assent muffled, her head lightly bobbing against my shoulder.
“Remember I warned you this could happen? I told you to get your shower in the afternoon because you would run out of time? I knew if you waited it would be too late for us to spend time together when you finished. I warned you, and you said you’d ‘keep it in mind.’ Remember?”
“Mmmhmm, I think so,” she says, but I know she’s hedging, that her reluctance only points to an unwillingness to accept things as they now are, to accept that she chose this outcome.
Kevin and I have a standing date on Saturday nights, even if it’s a date at home. We slip away to the upstairs den to watch a movie alone. Despite my careful warnings, Riley spent the afternoon curled in a chair reading weather reports and sending texts. Like a poorly nourished child, she fed her most immediate hungers with not-quite-satisfying things and sacrificed her time with us; she ate the stew, but traded her birthright. In more significant spiritual terms, in the context of our devotion to Him, God describes these old ways as foolish, idolatrous exchanges.
As I had predicted, Riley took her shower after supper, and when finally she had finished, she found Kevin and me tucked away in the den for our date. She stood beside the arm of the sofa next to Kevin, planted like a standing stone.
“I found you,” she’d said, as though our disappearance had been clandestine, as though she had not known of our plans.
“Umm, this is our date,” Kevin said, not without compassion, but without invitation.
Riley knelt beside Kevin on the floor, pressing her knees into the carpet, forcing him to reiterate. I heard a whisper from the history of God’s people, the Israelites saying, now we’re ready; now we’ll obey; now we’ll enter the land.
I wanted to slide over, to give up our date and pat the seat and invite her to join us, but I also knew I couldn’t. No discipline is enjoyable at the time, and what I really want for her is that harvest of peace. And this training Riley to set aside the immediate things she wants to do in order to enjoy more important things later, to sacrifice small-time pleasures to find big-time joy, represents more to us than just what she needs for the independence she longs to have one day. We have acknowledged how hard it is to choose the better things–especially for Riley, while empowering her with the truth that she has the freedom and the power to choose them. It’s an ugly thing how this world redefines captivity as freedom, how it suggests we can’t walk through those open doors, especially if the walk requires faith.
“Date night means just me and your mom,” Kevin had said.
Riley’s shoulders had sagged; deliberately, she had dragged them down. She had exhaled, part sigh, part frustration, an audible groan. Why can you not just let me do what I want? I’m not sure she even knew that’s what she was saying, that she’d rejected our plans, that she’d asserted herself as in charge of us all, that in this moment she had denied her trust in us and what we’d taught her. She had ignored our warnings. But that’s the way it is: sometimes we’re blind to the truth.
Kevin had said nothing more, and Riley could feel the weight of her father’s immovable sovereignty, that he would not concede his authority. She did not understand that it hurt him to watch her slunk away defeated, to hear the click of the door as she went away. In that moment, she did not understand the love that propelled him to want more for her. So, she waited until he had gone to come to me.
“Yes, you missed it,” I say to her now. “You missed it because you didn’t do what I told you to do. You said you’d keep it in mind, but you didn’t.”
She lifts her head, sits back against the sofa, drags her palms against her cheeks. She nods. “Yeah, I think that might be part of it.”
“I think that’s all of it,” I say, smiling. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. But tomorrow’s another day. Tomorrow you can choose to put your phone down and get your shower earlier and save that time after supper for time with us. Do you want to do that?”
“Yes,” she says, but not without some doubt, and this too I understand. The old self fits like a glove; it feels like a shirt too small to lift over your head. It’s an uncomfortably comfortable misery.
What she does not say, not until later, not until a whole new day, is what she decides at that moment to do about her problem. Only later does she tell me, grinning wide:
“When I went to bed, I prayed. I asked God to help me make better choices tomorrow. And you know what, Mom? He does. He does help me.”
