My eldest came home from school this week, with a few suitcases, his cello, two big bags of dirty laundry, and his soccer cleats in tow. Wanting to get a jump start on getting organized--and desperately trying to stay ahead of the chaos of having all of us and all of our stuff under one apartment roof--I got the laundry going and started to unpack the smaller suitcases in the room he's going back to sharing with his brother.
In the course of unpacking, I found the usual stuff--clothing, books--but also something that brought me such joy. My son had brought home a whole slew of framed photos that I'd forgotten he'd been toting around since college. There was the one of him, his sister and me, taken in a friend's backyard after his college graduation. There was the one of him and his siblings that is probably fifteen years old. There was the one of me and him, from where I can't remember. But I paused at that one and thought, What a beautiful photo of the two of us. I looked young once. Time does take its toll.
I have no idea how many kids tote around family photos from place to place, but I am so touched that my son does. To me it says that however far out into the world he goes, he remains tethered to us, in the best sense of that word. Not forcibly connected, but linked by choice, by desire, by love.
Ours is not an uncomplicated family, so this connectedness is even more important, and not at all guaranteed. Yes, my husband and I have worked doggedly to build family bonds. Not didactically, but experientially. My approach has been to use the opportunity of travel to get us out of our normal routine, and away from the stresses of home. I consider it the greatest gift we've given each other. Sometimes, those trips have meant leaving our autistic son home, and while it initially troubled me to do that, seeing the ways in which my eldest and youngest could connect without the extra stresses of dealing with their brother convinced me that there was a clear upside. And that upside was heightened by knowing that my autistic son was spending his time away from us with a loving aunt and uncle.
My son has been away from home for nine years, counting college, work, and graduate school. His presence at home aligned mostly with school vacations, but not even always then. He'd been a quiet, steadying presence at home, so his absence made a difference. It meant there was no buffer between my autistic son and my daughter. While she missed the very early years--which encompassed some of her brother's worst and most challenging behaviors--she grew up in a home distorted by disability, a home in which things were stretched and pulled in ways that were radically different from how things are in families that aren't living and wrestling with the challenges of disability.
Having my son home now is welcome, of course, but tinged with a little bit of sadness. After all, his life, like the lives of so many of his peers, has been upended by the restrictions imposed by COVID-19. The way forward for him is delayed, if not derailed. Time will tell how his future unfolds, as it will for all of us. But his being back, for however long, completes us. We've not all been together for any length of time since before my son left for college, so I'm selfishly relishing having him with us, even if his extended time at home is not by his choice.
I recall visiting my son at his last place of residence in college. He lived on the top floor of a house, in a space decrepit enough that I asked one of his roommates if anyone in the house was a biology major. He said he thought so, at which point I suggested he might be able to tell them what was growing in their bathroom.
My son's room was sparse. He travels lightly, which might be unintended preparation for a life in the Navy. On the wall above his desk, he had taped a copy of the letter my father, z'l, had sent to Yad Vashem, vouching for the righteousness of the Polish farmer who had hidden my father toward the end of World War II, saving his life. I was so struck by that, and so touched. I've never told my children what to value, what to prioritize. That's a fool's errand. Children watch and listen. They see and hear what their parents prioritize. And they mimic. Not all kids. And not all in the same way. But still.
What I took away from seeing the inside of my son's college bedroom, and what I learned from unpacking his suitcases, is that we are with him. Wherever he is, and wherever we are, we are together. As a parent, I'm not sure I could ever hope for anything more.
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