Teacher Teacher

As I watched my daughter play My First Lotto and then do two puzzles with my son last night, I not only marveled at her outsized ability to engage him, and her wisdom about how he thinks and what he knows and likes, I also wondered whether her extraordinary empathy, observational skills, and passion were things that are of any value in this world.

Here was a not-quite-ten-year-old child, taking charge of her not-quite-fourteen-year-old autistic brother. Watching her in these moments is a bit like watching a killer whale go after a seal. The determination, the single-mindedness, and the will-not-fail spirit are breathtaking All these qualities are present at other times, but the innate radar my daughter has for my son is something really quite amazing. Clearly, she's watching us with him, but I think she's surpassed us. Her awareness of the words to use with him, his preferences, and her overall sense of how he thinks and experiences the world startle me.

It was not so long ago that Len and I were headed out for the evening. Noah was having a hard time, carrying on. It was Ariel who said, "Don't worry, mom. I'll do an art project with him." She just turned him around and marched him into the den. And lo and behold when we came back, there was a completed art project.

This extraordinary capacity combines beautifully with the more normal resentment, anger and frustration that any typical sibling is likely to feel toward a disabled sibling. We feel the fallout, the collateral damage, all the time. We need to deal with that, and she deserves the space in which to express her less-than-generous feelings. The trick is to give her what she needs without depriving her siblings of what they need, and vice versa. Wish I could say we've mastered that.

But back to wondering whether these qualities of passion, compassion, observation and determination matter. The obvious answer should be "yes," but I can't help wondering. Ariel's got big ambitions--saving the world, saving the oceans, teaching adults a thing or two about the damage they (we) do daily to her world, etc. etc. If I had real money to bet, it would be on her. But the world's a funny place, and what she brings to it might not have "market value." After all, what price do you put on seeing deep into the mind of an other-worldly child and dragging him into your own, simply because it's the right and necessary thing to do?