A Letter to My Autistic Son on his Thirteenth Birthday

Dear Jack,

A week ago, you started sneaking the scissors into the living room. You’ve had two missions as far as we can tell. The first was to cut your own hair. We always liked it floppy, but mom caught you hacking custom alterations while standing in the middle of the floor. “I can help you,” she offered “Do you want it short?”

“SHORT!” You answered.

We had no idea.

Your second purpose for the blades seemed more urgent, though. You went to the bookshelves and took down one of the many screenshots from your digital movie library. These have been your favorite living room decorations for years now. You made the images yourself. You couldn’t choose the order in which the covers appeared on the AppleTV–iTunes does that by itself–but you could at least hide certain titles until the configuration satisfied you.

Anyway, you took one of those long-standing decorations, and you started to cut. At first, I wanted to take the scissors away for safety’s sake. But then I saw what you were working on. Your blade got close to the movie covers. Very close. You trimmed around each of them until you had eight perfect little rectangles. And that’s when I realized it. You were disassembling your digital movie shelves and reassembling them in a new order–one that you picked yourself.

I saw something of an artist’s defiance in your work, as if you were sick of the corporate man at Apple forcing your tastes into a corner. But more than that, I saw a child who wasn’t a child anymore. I saw a boy becoming a man, putting his mark on his environment.

Today, as you know, is special. It’s your birthday. You’re thirteen years old. And I know you hate being caught off guard, son, so I want to tell you a few things. The journey toward manhood isn’t easy. Things will start to be different, little by little. School will get harder. Your responsibilities will grow. The way the world sees you will change forever.

Most importantly, though, you will change. Not just your body and your voice, but your feelings, too. They will go up and down and left and right. Things you like and dislike will shift suddenly. You might even want to rearrange your movies in a different order every day, just because you feel like it. I want you to know there’s nothing weird about any of this. You belong here.

The other night, Emily, Sam and I were trying to get you to talk to us. “What’s your favorite animal, Jack? Monkeys or penguins?”

“PANDA!” you said.

Of course. You’ve been watching Kung Fu Panda 2 every day for the past six months. You love Po. So we laughed, but you weren’t being funny. “PO IS PURE AWESOMENESS!” you insisted, using one of your recent phrases. And we had to agree. Po is pure awesomeness. And so was your answer. “A or B,” we asked. And you answered, “C.”

You used to be content to consume life. Not anymore. Now, you want to have a hand in shaping it, like your own floppy head of hair.

Here’s what I need you to know, my boy: we welcome that shaping. We welcome your opinions, your creations, and all your imaginings. When we see you assert yourself, it fills us with joy.

Maybe you thought you needed to be timid before. Maybe you haven’t spoken up much because words are so hard for you. But we love your voice, son, even in all it’s silent variations. Your delights are our delights. When something makes you happy, we can’t help but be happy with you.

More to the point: this world of ours? It’s your world, too. We don’t want to shape it it without you. We need you, son. We need your eye, your smile, your keen and unusual sense of order. We need your pure sense of awesomeness.

I hope you’ll take our hands in this adventure. I hope you’ll grace us with your unique and fascinating perspective. Because we’re all walking a journey of discovery, and none of us were meant to walk it alone. You already know you need us. But I’m not sure you’ve ever realized how much we need you, too.

Happy Birthday, young man. I’m proud of you.

Dad

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