Five minutes before we leave for school, I come down to check on Riley. Before I left the room in search of a shower, while she attended to what-I-don’t-know upstairs, I prepared for leaving at the right time, filling in steps I know otherwise will take her too long. I collected her morning pills (yes, […]

It starts as a joke, Kevin drawing Adam back after we finish cleaning the kitchen and Adam starts the nightly pilgrimage to his sanctum sanctorum; Kevin asking Adam to give all the things Adam is withholding–a hug, a backscratch, a bit of lingering attention. Adam endures, but only with perfunctory investment–the hug, light and limp, […]

Robert Frost would be proud: Every night Adam roams and roams for miles before he sleeps, up and down the same stretch of hall, his heavy tread pressing the carpet flat, beating out a path. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. In muffled pilgrimage, he travels overhead, across the living room ceiling and back […]

On the other side of a migraine, my Riley begins to sing: From the ash I am born again Forever safe in the Savior’s hands I stop folding and let the warm towel fall from my fingers, listening. She missed worship today, let her head fall like a rock on my shoulder during the opening […]

Show time, and my friend’s four year-old daughter refuses to sing.  From where I sit some rows back from the stage, I have the perfect view of her eyes—wide, expressive, and determined; dark pools surrounded by sweetness.  She frowns, one of those grimaces that betrays an effort to remain fierce and resolute, shaking her head […]

Sometimes, I’m thankful for autism. On days like Tuesday, when Riley jumps in the van and puts her fingers on my shoulder, waiting.  When I look back at her and she smiles, words tumbling out, words like these, words that cut me sharp but leave her pristine: “Mom, today someone said a bad word at […]