The Things We Cannot Say

by Kelly Rimmer

“Is he autistic?” the doctor asks. “He’s on the autism spectrum, yes,” I correct her. The terminology doesn’t matter, not really, but it matters to me because my son is more than a label. To say he is autistic is not accurate—autism is not who he is, it is a part of who he is. This is semantics to someone who doesn’t live with the disorder every day

“Please tell her that her brother gave his life for the best man I ever knew,” my mother says abruptly. “Tell her that my father loved my mother, and he loved me, and he helped hundreds…thousands of children in his career, and he was the best dad and friend and husband and…” She stops abruptly, then clears her throat again, before she says calmly, “Just tell her that Saul Weiss, if that’s who I knew as my dad, did not waste a second of the life he was given. Neither did Mama. Make sure that Emilia knows that the sacrifice her brother made was not wasted.”

Just for a second, all of the chaos inside me eases, and my mind is completely still. I have a great love just like Babcia’s great love—and this man is it. It’s not clean and simple, because our lives are not clean and simple—and it’s harder day-to-day to keep that love in our focus, because we have so much else to manage. But right now—just for a moment—the static of managing our kids and his career and the dynamics of our home life has completely cleared, and my love for Wade surges until it’s all I can think about.

She shares that same love of learning and knowledge and story, the same sense of compassion, the same ability to dream big despite her circumstances—even if she sometimes forgets she’s allowed to do just that.

Our family life is never going to be easy, but that can’t stop any one of us from reaching for our dreams. It cost our ancestors too damned much for us to have this life—the best thing we can do to honor them is to live it to its fullest.