By Z and Dad
Day by day is how it goes when your adult child has autism
Igot on the bus. I went to school. I played Birthday and Don’t Let Me Down.” — Z That’s my elder son’s account of the first day of his senior year in high school, which occurred late last month. He got on the yellow bus and fired up YouTube on his phone. Then, as he often does, he played the Beatles song “Birthday,” then the Katy Perry song “Birthday,” then the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” and, finally, a song of the same name by The Chainsmokers and Daya.
While other parents are worrying about keeping the inevitable senior slide from sabotaging their child’s college plans, I’m more concerned about how the other kids on the bus will respond to my son’s unusual rituals. That’s how it is when your nearly adult child is on the autism spectrum. I’m not complaining. Z, as I often call him, is a sweet guy, in good physical shape and always ready to help, assuming he understands the task at hand and gets a little guidance.
“I played Legos. I sat on the bean bags. I went to the small gym.” — Z
My wife and I often ask Z to type up the major events of his day. Of course, we did that following the first day of his senior year, and his quotes here are excerpted from that chronicle. In addition to the Legos and the beanbag time, he reported one other leisure activity — agame of Sorry!
I was taken aback by the amount of playing he reported. I thought: This young man is hopefully heading for some type of training and then the job market within a few years, so shouldn’t this year be rigorous? But given that it was the first day, I decided not to send a flaming email to a teacher or school administrator, as I’ve sometimes done in the past. After all, it’s important for Z to get comfortable and start communicating with his fellow students. So I politely asked the teacher to start sending homework as soon as possible, and left it at that — for now.
“I did history. I did chorus. I did science. I did visual arts.”— Z
Z told us that in visual arts, he ended up talking with the teacher about one of his favorite topics: Stores that are no longer there. That teacher told him that there was once a Blockbuster’s on the South Side, which has been replaced by a Popeye’s. He excitedly brought that nugget back to mywife and me.
For reasons we can only begin to fathom, Z has nearperfect recall of the closures of stores. Drive down any street, and he’ll point out the stores that aren’t there anymore. A favorite pastime is searching up videos about Circuit City or Bottom Dollar.
I sometimes dream of running across a want-ad reading: “Wanted: Management trainee with perfect recall of retail relocations and bankruptcies, plus extraordinary skill at word searches. Knowledge of Beatles catalog a plus, but no job experience required.”
As that is unlikely — unless Rick Sebak is hiring — we’ve started several processes. The school has placed Z on various job sites. The state is working on a vocational evaluation. Z has attended some evening activities put on by the Community College of Allegheny County. The hope is that somewhere along the line, Z’s good attitude and unusual skills will magically line up with a job opportunity — one that doesn’t require great communications skills, deep abstract thinking or fine motor finesse.
“I filled my fountain. I took a nap. I ate throat drops.”— Z
Myson loves his backyard fountain — the leaping water, the shine of sunlight through the flying droplets, the splashing sound. He loves swimming pools, his bicycle and his porch swing. When he’s excited, he smiles and jumps around. In some ways, it’s wonderful that he’s not a typical 17-year-old.
In fact, bringing Z toward adulthood is so interesting that he and I recently launched a website — buildingz house. — chronicling our efforts to build a structure (the metaphorical “Z House”) for his future. (We don’t use our full names, or those of Z’s teachers or other involved professionals, because that could affect his efforts.) My younger son writes the computer code, and my wife shoots some of the pictures, so it’s a family effort. Our hope is that the website will give Z a voice and help others who are similarly situated.
When your rosy-cheeked 4-year-old has autism, there are plenty of supports, programs, resources and advisers. When he’s starting to shave? Not so much. That’s scary, especially since his parents won’t live forever. We hope he’ll progress toward an economically sustainable future. We hope his days will be productive, not dull. We hope he’ll always be surrounded by caring people. We just can’t guarantee any of that. All we can do is sing out to the world and the future: Don’t Let Me Down.