No matter where our child falls on the spectrum, every one of us can identify with Mary McLaughlin’s gorgeous metaphor in her essay, “Live via Satellite: A Parenting Journey.”
We all circle within our children’s orbits, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away, our antennas tuned to their shifting needs:
At times, I’m a communications satellite, waiting for Bud
to transmit messages through space to me so that I can bounce them
to the people who need to receive them. I was called into action recently
at Dunkin’ Donuts, when Bud marched to the counter, looked
the clerk square in the face, and announced in a booming script from
an Oswald cartoon, “I would like a salmon sorbet, please!”
The clerk smiled nervously and shifted her questioning gaze to me.
I smiled back and clarified, “He’d like a jelly munchkin and a
chocolate munchkin, please.”
Message transmitted, and received.
Sometimes the job is not as much fun. One summer, Bud developed
acute anxiety about thunderstorms and started to panic when
dark clouds gathered. I assumed the role of weather satellite, scanning
the skies for signs of inclement weather, calculating the timing,
the duration, and the severity of any potential precipitation, and
planning our days accordingly.
At other times, Bud’s anxieties require me to become a defense
satellite, watching vigilantly for potential threats on his horizon—a
barking dog, a shrieking baby, a peer who demands too much, an
adult who invades his personal space—and deflecting them before
they are able to make contact or do damage.
In easier times, I am an entertainment satellite, beaming in the
diversions that I know will bring Bud delight—a summer trip to
the ocean to plunge into the icy waves; an afternoon in winter spent
making snow angels. I’ve learned to transmit the characters and
dialogues he loves most, to help his scripted echolalia transform
from isolating monologue to connected conversation, as I become
Bert to his Ernie, Minnie to his Mickey, or The Man with the Yellow
Hat to his Curious George.
Most of the time, though, I’m a more natural satellite: a moon.
My phases coordinate with Bud’s as I help him regulate the tidal
ebbs and flows of his engagement with the world. Sometimes, I loom
large on his horizon, a visible, tangible presence, illuminating the
things that surround him: “Look, Bud. See this. Do this. Care about
this.” Other times, I fade into the background, a faraway sliver whose
influence is barely perceptible as Bud steps forward, makes his own
decisions, and prepares to launch.(The essay continues in the book.)
As I read Mary’s update, I wondered about my own To Do list which, not surprisingly, looks identical save a change in the main character’s name: 1) Fluffy and 2) Everything else. How much has it changed over the years? Some. Some. We both still need more satellites. I think we all do.
Mary writes:
In his foreword to Gravity Pulls You In, John Elder Robison writes of the essays in it, ”One thing strikes me in almost every story. Autism has taken over the lives of these people.” His observation resonates with me; it’s the same thing I thought about myself as I re-read this essay – an essay I wrote three years ago.
An interesting reality in writing about parenting is that each discrete piece of writing captures a single moment in time. Even a piece that describes events that happened over several years is, by definition, written by a parent in a particular life space raising a child in a particular life space, and the writing – no matter what its content – reflects those realities.
As I re-read this essay now, I see how well I captured the life space I occupied three years ago – a space in which, I see only in retrospect, I was single-minded in purpose. In those days, there were just two items on my “to do” list: 1) Bud and 2) Everything Else. And I never really got to that second item on the list.
But time changes everything.
Shortly after I wrote this essay about Bud’s orbit through space and my life in revolution around him, our life space changed. Bud and I hit a series of asteroid belts and I suddenly lost my single-minded focus. To be honest, I’m not really sure how it happened: Did I lose my focus, which sent us careening into asteroid belts? Or did the asteroids shower down on us, shattering my focus in a hundred different directions? All I know is that there were times when I felt like I’d lost our orbit completely – times when the space around us was so thick with asteroids, Bud and I seemed to lose sight of each other. I knew that we were still connected, but sometimes, when we caught glimpses of each other through the barrage of falling debris, I’m not sure that we always looked familiar.
Three years and several asteroid belts later, we have emerged, pock-marked and battle-scarred, but whole, into another new space, in which we are once again aligned and in sync. But now, in this new space, my “to do” list is lengthy. Bud still occupies the top spot, but there are a lot more things that get done.
What’s even more interesting is that, in this new space, I am able to see how many other satellites Bud has around him. I can see how those other satellites fill the void when my attention is elsewhere. I can see that sometimes those other satellites are even more effective than I am at giving Bud the support and direction that he needs.
I can also see, in this new space, how many satellites I have in orbit around me – providing me all the same things that I have tried to provide to Bud.
And I can see how Bud himself has become a satellite, as he falls into orbit around his grandfather, whose challenges increase with his age. I watch as my son becomes the object in my father’s sky that orients him and becomes his point of reference, illuminating his life as nothing else can.
I still love my role as Bud’s satellite, but I also love all of the other satellites that have emerged in our lives.
Or maybe those other satellites were there all along. Maybe I just needed some time amid the asteroids to really help me see them.
Mary McLaughlin has carved out a space in small-town New Hampshire, where she works in student affairs and teaches writing at Colby-Sawyer College, and in the blogosphere at MOM-Not-Otherwise-Specified.
