I was afraid he lost it.
And only recently, did I admit I thought it was my fault.
When COVID first hit, we faced some of the hardest days with autism. Mainly, I’ve determined, due to the lack of sleep, and the heightened state of anxiety we all faced.
In the worst run of it- out of 33 days, 29 of them I spent up for hours during the middle of the night with Luca.
#Sleeplessnightswithautism, I deemed them… documenting them on my social media feeds, trying to explain what they looked like, and although the kind suggestions of “just let him work it out”, or “leave him in bed, he’ll be fine” and “don’t let him have his iPad” continued to come our way, I needed people to understand what our sweet boy was going through.
Seeing is believing, and they needed to see a STIMM in action… the way his small swift feet paced without hesitation around our darkened living room… his tiny fingers working through the buckets of small animal figurines, squinting his eyes to the light only provided by the Disneynature movie playing in the background…
I needed to show the way he simply could not settle… not due to a screen of an iPad, but due to the internal reel that raced through his mind, matching the drum to his rapid heart beat…
I needed to show his love of the lines and the attention to detail that when his mind was working in such magical ways where he would create these beautiful landscapes playing out in front of us.
I was afraid, for a minute, when his lines stopped… that it was my fault.
Because when I couldn’t take the lack of sleep any longer, I worked with his doctor to put him on a medicine that would help him slow that reel at night… calm his heart beat… a medicine that I was afraid may have stopped his love of the lines completely... as he stopped lining up his figurines, and he stopped creating those landscapes of magic and wonder, once the medicine regulated his days.
My goal with the medication had never been to stop his stimming. I need to make that clear. There are mixed views on if you should allow stimming, and despite any controversy this may imply… Luca’s stimms of needing to create in that world were what I considered to be his magic - one that I felt privileged to bear witness of.
I adored that he had this creativity stirring inside him that simply had to be shared with the world.
I admired when he could show with such conviction that his artistry demanded the space and ability to be created…
Like a painter who spends hours on a tortuous one nighter in a dark studio in front of a blank canvas…
Or a songwriter who carries a small notebook, constantly humming and drumming a beat, allowing the words to swirl in their heads until they make it onto the page…
The way a composer can get lost behind the keys of a baby grand, allowing every feeling to escape through their fingers as they move along the keys…
It was magical… and by no means something I had hoped would end.
As I was making our holiday video though, Luca sat on my lap at its’ completion so I could show him the finished product. (If you haven’t seen it, selfish plug- give it a watch! I was really proud of how it came out.)
The moment that we got to his section, his eyes lit up. He watched as he made the lines on the screen, and screamed “Penguins!” when we reached the image of he and his friends at the aquarium. It was almost as if he had forgotten what it felt to be inspired.
He lept from my lap, worked his way to his playroom, and the magic began.
The lines returned.
My heart ached as I realized how much I had missed it. Watching him in his happy place, creating without boundary, alive in this other world.
I savored it. Unsure if this was merely a moment of inspiration that may not continue.
As the days went on, it was like his lines had never left.
Tonight, when I suggested The Lion King as he requested to watch a movie before bedtime, he paused to consider it.
After a moment, he agreed, and then searched the playroom to grab his many buckets of figurines.
Those powerful tones of the opening scene played through the speakers, and I watched him take the small antelopes out, and start to line them up, while humming with the music.
After the antelopes, he reached for the elephants, as the screen displayed the scene where all the animals make their way to meet the new baby prince, Simba.
He lined up his butterflies, and his cheetahs… his buffalos, and his hyenas (or what he’s deemed to be hyenas, because frankly- they don’t make hyena figurines), all in front of the shelf on which he placed his monkey and his lion.
He continued to create for an hour into the film.
It was beautiful.
Our boy had not lost his magic.
Our boys’ magic still had a place to be fostered and celebrated...
We just needed to wait patiently and remind him how special we thought it was.
To those parenting, autism or not, remember that each child is magical. Take the time to witness it, celebrate it, and let them know how important you think it is… as it is uniquely theirs. And you never know when they may grow out of wanting to be part of that magic.
To anyone who feels like they too may have lost part of their identity lately… maybe Luca’s lines can remind you how important it can be to always remember who you were, in order to discover who you can still become.
XO