On Being Different .......

I have a wonderful grandson named Hunter. He is autistic/high functioning. He is such a beautiful child who benefited from the best of both his mother and father’s genes. For the first three going into four years of his life, he seemed so completely normal … even though I hate that word.

Then he began to change …. mainly in terms of eye contact and the fact that he seemed to be retreating more and more into a world of his own making. Oftentimes when you tried to make conversation, you had to call his name often and with purpose to get his attention, and his focus always seemed to be elsewhere. Over the years, with many therapies, continued coaching and even some light medication, he has dramatically improved, but he will always be uniquely himself.

In the beginning, everyone but my daughter, Jennifer, and myself seemed to be in denial of his diagnosis …. after all, he looked so normal. But despite popular opinion, we subscribed to the ideology that ignorance is never bliss and knowledge is power so we sought help to give Hunter everything he needed to grow and mature into a productive young man. Christmas before last, after seeing a segment on 60 Minutes about how well autistics were interacting with I-pads, I got Hunter one, and it has been an amazing learning tool for him. He’s learned how to use Google and YouTube and he reads and researches a myriad of topics at all times. When he gets pumped about a particular subject, he will talk your ears off. His latest craze is the history of world disasters ….. such as The Hindenburg, the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911 and the various doomed ships from Titanic to the Lusitania.

I might add here that Hunter has been adept at technology from a very young age. When he was only three I could go to a website he was interested in and he could navigate the mouse, click on subjects and send it to the printer. If I were absorbed in something else and didn't pay particular attention, he might have 60 pages printed before I put him on notice.

After seeing the movie Titanic, he became completely obsessed with the story, so Jennifer and I took a trip up to Branson with the kids last holiday season where they have a really wonderful Titanic museum. He was a kid in candy land and could have stayed there twice as long as we did, but his little sister could only be entertained for so long. Isabella, on the other hand, sat on at least six Santa Clause’s laps during our retreat, repeating her rehearsed list verbatim. She’s more like me …. it never hurts to hedge your bets.

Anyway, I think all of my grandchildren are perfect just the way they are, and I wouldn’t change a thing. It doesn’t mean I don’t pray for strides to be made in discovering the causes and treatment of autism, but in the meantime, I prefer not to see Hunter as handicapped as much as I see him as different and different is not always a bad thing. In fact, we tend to learn the most about ourselves when we are forced to see the world through someone else’s eyes.