keep on reaching
At a stoplight on our way to school, Adam looks at me, his expression all tenderness, and reaches over to flick my ears. He leans across my field of vision, glancing pointedly toward the red light before beginning to rhythmically bend and release the tops of my ears, sometimes tugging lightly on the lobes and cartilage with his fingers, and I grin, thinking not about the thoughts of that man in front of me, who makes eye contact as he looks in his rear view mirror, but about the fact that, as awkward as we are, God made us to give and receive love.
In my heart, I feel the swell of gratitude rising, because despite all the challenges of Autism, including Adam’s continual fight for words, I’ve always known he loves me. He laughs, returning my grin, joy spilling, and leans in, turning his ear closer to mine. I can tell he’s listening, as though the moment has its own music, and I know it does. He hears the reverberating sound of hesed–the steadfast, faithful love of God, the most enduring and powerful force in the universe.
Adam began flicking our ears as a young boy, and I don’t understand very much about the way his mind works, but from the beginning, it seemed that he was creating a new way to express his love for us. Words had failed him, and his body would not allow him to enjoy affection in any tactile way. These were painful times, when we wondered if we would ever find a way to connect with our son, to say the things we most wanted to say, and we cried out to God for help.
And then one day, Adam reached for my ears.
If Adam could hug me freely, if his body didn’t pull away within just a few tense moments because of the sensory information and overwhelm involved for him in being close, this ear flicking of his might be replaced now by a kind of “stealth hug” young men sometimes reserve for their moms. He might come up behind me while I’m washing dishes and rest his forehead a moment on my shoulder or reach for my hand in quiet moments when he senses I’m distressed. But since Adam’s body just won’t let him do those things, ear flicking, as crazy as it looks, is the way my young adult son still folds into me when no one is looking, curving down toward me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders to hold me tight.
“I love you too, Adam,” I say, grinning at him over the top of his forearm, reaching over to whisper-lightly touch his ear with the tips of my fingers.
“Love you,” he says briefly, the words flung from his mouth as carefully as he can manage, thudding a little on his tongue as though he had to tug them loose. He drops his arms and sits back against the seat as the light turns green.
Love never fails, that’s the truth I remember as I turn my eyes back toward the road.
For years, I have asked God to show me how to love, because as I try to imitate His affectionate gestures, I always run up against the limitations of my own heart. I’ve learned that I will never love well unless He loves through me.
“As I have loved you, so must you love one another,” Jesus said, and it only takes a short look for me to know how far I’ve got to go yet to accomplish that.
Christ suffered and died on a Roman cross for the love of people who don’t know him and may never acknowledge him, and Luke said God is kind to those who are evil and ungrateful, and through the life of the prophet Hosea, the Lord showed us all how He loves and betroths Himself to people from whom He expects unfaithfulness. He loves in a wildly different way, and that compels me.
I know I need more than just words to say I love you, and I wonder:
What is the way to touch each other with love when we’ve all lost our way, and we just don’t know any longer how to connect?
We live in a hyperconnected world that is, on the whole, a pretty disconnected place. It’s like we stretch our arms and our hands can’t quite go the distance; it’s like our bodies shrink back when we try to hug each other. More than ever, we know the gap that needs a bridge, and if God has taught me anything through Adam, it’s that if I want to show love in a connection-challenged world, I’ll have to get comfortable with being strange and wildly different. I’ll need a countercultural language, an alien tongue, a new way to express real love, because the language we have has gotten all confused.
Maybe this is why, even though God had already told us countless times to love, Jesus said, “A new command I give you, that you love one another.”
I feel Adam’s eyes looking, and I glance his way, and he smiles. His fingers twitch on his thigh, and I know he wants to reach for me again, that he’s waiting until another light turns.
That’s the thing, I think, turning my eyes again to the road ahead of us. Just to keep on reaching.
