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Seasons Change

There is something very special about mid-September. The sun sets closer to eight pm than nine and the from one day to the next the air cools and warms and cools again until fall officially arrives sometime in October. In the garden, huge Hosta blossoms shrink to less than their average size as does every perennial sharing the garden beds. The potted annuals start to bloom less flowers and as the days get shorter, they shrivel and die.

It is at this time of year, I like to play Russian Roulette with the weather and if I wake to blue skies and a promise of a forecast with a high of at least twenty-two degrees Celcius, I throw the paddle board into the trunk of the car and I set off to my favourite lake. What the spring and summer deems an habitual activity, becomes in mid-September, these chance thrills to see just how much more time on the lake I can get with my board. 

Paddling in September is a solitary act. Like the seasons come and go, so do children who grow and then go. At first, when they are little they go back to school then they go off to college, university or work and then they sometimes go somewhere remote and call it home. I cherish every opportunity I get to paddle on the lake with one or both of my boys and in September, I get another opportunity to cherish — the solo drive to my solo paddleboarding destination. 

Alone but by no means lonely, I am terriffic in a partnership, great in a the company of a few and good in a crowd but I really enjoy my own company and appreciate the times when I am alone with my thoughts, imagination and ideas.

Unlike the summertime trips to the lake that are filled with music, snacks and conversation, reflection starts the moment I leave the drive way, turn down the windows and turn up the music and I take in all the changes signalling that autumn is approaching. 

The reddish-orange of the leaves on the maple trees, the yellowing of the leaves of the birch and the way the foliage begins to get sparse along the roadside that allows me more frequent glimpses of the water as I drive to where I need to be. I think of all that I … we… have done this year — new things, habitual things. I think of the amazing and somehow perfectly timed job opportunities that fell into our laps, and the ones that we missed. I think of the people we have met, good friends that are still with us and the ones we’ve lost and the people we have ushered back into our lives and will hold on to for dear life.

Fifteen minutes into my drive, I pass the long driveway where we used to turn onto long before we moved into the area. A glance in the rear view mirror lets me know that there is no one close behind me and I slow the car almost to a crawl and look at the property that belonged to my husband’s parents. I listen closely and I swear I can hear the sound of my sons’ laughter and the melodic giggles of my niece and nephew when they were small, riding on the tractor or on the ATV with my father-in-law. I glance onto the extensive property and I can still see in my mind’s eye, the dogs chasing frisbees and sticks and I can still smell the char of the beef on the grill. And while the essence of everything in that house — my in-laws’ home could have been so much better, the good times still rise above the times that were less pleasant. Now new owners have knocked down the old yellowing house and erected a new, gleaming white and (from the children jumping into the newly installed pool) a happy home and it makes me smile. The season has changed on the property and there is joy radiating from the house all the way to the roadside where I am slowly rolling by.

Driving away, the music and the wind blowing through the car makes me add singing to my smiling and a feeling of peace settles in my heart. I inhale and I feel like I have breathed in three times the volume of air than I normally would and when I exhale. 

I feel light.

I feel, well, I feel uplifted. And as John Hiatt sings Have a Little Faith In Me, I am back on the open air red clay tile dance floor at Sandals Dunn’s River Falls, dancing with my new husband at our wedding before twenty-two of our closest family and friends. 

I think of our life and I feel proud. Yes, I know people usually describe it as blessed and lucky and all of those sugary things but I am proud because we have stood the test of time and boy were we tested. I remember thinking of our life one new year’s eve in our apartment in Montreal and I remember thinking it was perfect — almost too perfect and I remember wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. And when it did, it dropped like a boulder off a mountain top onto a valley village below. 

We had a tough go of it — REALLY tough but I’m proud we were always able to come back to the one thing that bound us and still binds us now. Our love gave us hope and an ability to laugh even when we felt like crying. Our love gave us faith in each other and very often when we found ourselves at the bottom of a scummy barrel of life shit, we would tell each other, “it’s you and me and we will get through this,”. Love kept me and my husband strong through the days of our son’s diagnosis, job losses, financial distress, big moves across the country, loss of parents and the loss of dear friends. Our love got us through things that would have ended most couples and torn apart families and now, the simple things that bring us joy is a constant reminder that love heals and rewards too. We just had to keep reminding ourselves what brought us together in the first place because that was what was going to keep us strong and keep us together.

North Beach Provincial Park Lake Ontario Photo by D. Barsotti

At the thirty eight minute mark, I get into the Provincial Park seamlessly. The usual visitors from Quebec have returned to La Belle Province and though their absence frees up several parking spaces, I do miss hearing their Quebcois banter and the smell of Bain de Soleil. The September beach bums are all local — perhaps one or two from Toronto — and the pace is slow and lazy. I get my board from the trunk, connect it to the pump, assemble my oar and put on my life jacket. Once the pump shuts off, I lock the car and head to the water’s edge. The bigger, longer beach to the right of the parking lot has waves butthey are not very tall and the more enclosed lake on the left side of the lot is completely still. Not a ripple because there is no wind and the water looks like glass much like it does early in the morning in the summer. The water has receded somewhat — another sign that the weather is changing because the beach is wider and I find myself walking faster than usual to get the board into the water..I step into it and immediately retract my foot. 

Yeesh, so cold! A reminder of the bleaky, cooler and rainy days of the two weeks prior. Though the temperature has risen to twenty-six degrees Celsius, even in this very shallow part of the lake the water is icy. Today would not be an ideal day to fall in so my brain knew that my core had to be engaged at all times.

I dismiss the feeling of sharp knives stabbing into my feet and mount my board and I set off and I decide not to do the circumference of the lake this time but to paddle directly across it as there were no jet skis or boats zooming by today. The cottages in the distance are all empty except for one where I see the elderly couple grilling something on the barbecue, the white smoke looks like a snake dancing straight up to the sky. I pass the family of swans, the babies now free of their mucky greyish-brown fluff are stark white like their parents, and I pass two gaggles of Canadian geese who are quietly drifting beween the reeds and lily pads. Today they aren’t honking, flapping their wings wildly or hissing at people on the beach. Like everyone at the lake, they too are chilling in the peaceful vibe the glorious mid-September Sunday has to offer. 

An hour passes and I have crossed the lake twice and I realize I hadn’t thought of anything while I was paddling. I just listened to the gurgly sound of my paddle and my board moving through the water. I listened to the birds , looked at the sunlight gleaming and dancing on the water and I breathed in the air that didn’t smell of burnt wood, diesel from a boat or food being cooked on the beach.

It smelled like nothing. 

It was just clear — like my mind. And when I returned to the beach, tired but happy, I felt the corners of my mouth pushing my cheeks right up to my eyes, almost closing them. I don’t think I ever smiled like that while deflating my board, dis-assembling my oar or ridding myself of sand before getting into the car. .And even with the little pang of sadness in my chest, not knowing if today was indeed the end of my paddleboarding season, I drove along the wavy side of the lake, pulling over to take some photos of this most perfect mid-September moment.

Perfectly clear and clean water at NorthBeach Provincial Park Photo D. Barsotti

Still smiling.

I smiled all the way home and smiled and sang my way through the grocery store because my husband texted me asking me to bring home a carton of milk.

I smiled as I walked across the parking lot to my car and as I always do — and yes, I really always do, I smiled when I pulled into the driveway and saw him standing there waving and greeting me.

Life gets busy and like my husband, I get caught up in work and managing our finances a lot(kid in university), but every now and then and especially when one season fades and another gleams, I remember that this story of ours, the story of Tom and Daniella full of chapters of Adam and Logan; chapters of his family, my family, our immediate little family and our friends. This story of the places we’ve grown up, the place we met and the places we’ve lived; the places we have recently seen and are yet to see…this story, will end one day. It’s up to us (and yeah, fate) how we write it. It is up to us to figure out how we are going to deal with everything this life throws at us and on a day like today — a Sunday in mid-September when I have time to reflect on our journey, I realize that life is a gift measured in moments and I remind myself that these moments are not meant to be wasted on things that do not matter. I don’t know how many more seasons I will have on the lake but I do know this —  I’m not going to waste time worrying about it. I’m just going to live each day until it pops into my life again.

I hope you find moments of peace in your life. 

I hope you have moments in between seasons when you are able to reflect on the times of your life — all of them  —  and I hope your reflection ends in a smile, with the realization that you are still here — still relavant and still alive. 

You still can both give and receive love and that no matter what anyone says or society dictates…know that you are enough and you are blessed with the incredible gift of life with all its lows and it’s highest of highs.

Now, go find a way to take it all in.

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The Things We Need To Say

One of my childhood nicknames was Hallmark. I was the kid that made greeting cards for everyone and filled them with heartfelt words, expresssed in language beyond my years. As I got older and caught up in the blurr of life, I drifted onto the path where being busy was an acceptable excuse for not reaching out to others. There were more phone calls from telemarketers than from family and friends and text messages devolved from words to letter soundbites to emojis — even Facebook had an options for those way too busy to post by way of the poke or wave. Like so many people, I didn’t have time to talk to anyone who wasn’t providing me with something I needed and once the day wound down by the time I remembered I hadn’t spoken to my family or friends in a while, I’d glance at the clock and realize I was probably the only one who wasn’t asleep.

As we made the leap from television and radio to online streaming, the world became louder. We hear about everything moments after they occur. From people of power called out for tweets gone wrong to every new varient of the coronavirus discovered, to every fire, flood and frivolous fanfare, we are bombarded by the noise of the world. Yet, we are deafened by the silence of our lonliness. Even when I found myself sitting across from friends in person or virtually, I recognized how disconnected I’d become from people I actually had relationships with. We’d bounce from one meaningless topic to another until one of us blurted out the words of saving grace “Well, I gotta get going. Chat soon?” Yeah, right…..more like the Jamaican’s say “soon come” (meaning sure someday, some indefinite time in the future or maybe even NEVER) and as I slipped back into this life of mine that I thought was so busy, I turned up the volume of the noise of the world to drown out the loudness of my lonliness.

As my sons got older, I decided to teach them how to not get lost in the so-called busyness of life. After all, if it weren’t for them desperately trying to be heard by the adults in their lives, I might not have been able to re-direct myself onto a path that allowed me to be a less busy, more attentive human more generous with her time. As awkward as it can be, I make it a point to tell the people in my life regularly how I feel about them. We all want the people who matter to us to tell us the things people only say to each other in the movies. I want to hear how I make others feel. I want to hear that I am loved. I want to be thanked and I want to know that people are glad I’m around. I’m not looking for praise or popularity. I just want to feed the part of my soul that needs the comfort of feeling that I matter and that I have a purpose. If my soul’s yearning for a little uplifting and reassurance occasionally, I’m sure everyone’s is too. So I started with the three men in my life — my sons and my husband.

I know at any time, someone in our little family pod could die and should I go first, I don’t want them to wonder what they meant to me. I tell them I love them of course, but most of all, I hilight what it is I love about them, why I admire them, what makes me proud and why they are important — not just to me but to our community and to society. I believe that people, especially young people need to understand that they are important and that their existence is vital to the world. I think people need to hear that whether they are blessed with a long life or a concentrated one, what they think and do and what they bring to the table truly matters. The look on their faces as they process this information, the pause in the phone conversation after hearing these words allowed me to see and hear that my words have stirred up something positive within them. My younger son told me that the day I told him why he was important, they weight of the burden he was bearing became more tolerable. He told me knowing he was important made him feel stronger and more confident and he was able to say the same to others in his life. When I said the same thing to my older autistic son, he stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, smiled and hugged me and whispered “thank you Mom,”.

There are two songs that come to mind when I think of how necessary it is for us to un-busy ourselves so that we can connect with each other. I think of Five for Fighting’s 100 Years that reminds us that in the blink of an eye we are 15, 35 and 99 and I realize that if we don’t remember to say what we need to say when it matters, which is the essence of John Mayer’s, Say, we may go to our graves saying nothing at all. I don’t want that to happen to me so I make the time to reach out to that person who pops into my mind while I’m working or driving around. I try to plan some kind of outing for my group of girlfriends every two months or so and my bulletin board has post it notes to shoot person A or B a text to see how they are. I remember at the end of every staff email I send to thank them for bringing their unique talents to my autistic son’s life and remind them that we see and appreciate how much they do to enhance his life every day. These are the people who show up everyday to help my son and they do it not because they get paid, but because we give them the same love and kindness they show our son.

We can reverse drug use, depression, sadness, anxiety and suicide if we make the time to show love and kindness. A text, an email, a phone call or a face to face conversation brings as much joy to the giver as it does to the receiver. Mindfully chattting less about myself and finding out more about someone else lifts me up in ways material things cannot. Even people who begin a conversation by telling me they don’t have time, take a breath and slow their speech and they tell me the truth about how life’s been treating them. People need to talk. We need to listen. It’s important because they are important and life is short and they need to know while they are alive that they matter.

So I challenge you to realize you aren’t busier than anyone else. I challenge you to tell someone the things you would like someone to tell you…tell them something that you thing would lift them up and bring a smile to their face or give them that little confidence boost they might be looking for. If you do it once, I promise you you’ll do it for the rest of your life.

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Beautifully Perfect Moment.

North Beach Provincial Park — Still-Lake Side Photo D. Barsotti 2024

It’s not a secret I love paddleboarding — yet another of the things I picked up in my fifties that took.

Having new hobbies to replace the ones that physically hurt too much to continue to do, are a gift as we age. And as much as I miss regular rounds of golf or smashing a tennis ball weekly across a court, I am grateful for this zen, back-to-nature gem of a sport that had become my most recent addiction.

Every summer when my second son, Logan, came home from either being away for Junior Hockey or University, paddleboarding was our thing. He taught me how to maintain my balance on the board and how to paddle properly after all, and the conversations we had between mother and son were priceless.

This summer, I’m paddling alone apart from the odd days when first born, Adam, decides he can squeeze me into his busy schedule and joins me on the lake with his kayak or Logan pops home. This year, he is working for his school and has found his heart twenty minutes from there, in a true inside and out beauty, called Sara. He’s earning money, he’s in love and he is enjoying his youth over there, while juggling the scorching hot hurdles and hiccups of adulting without the luxury of coming home every day of the summer to a comfortable bed and already made meals.

Today, I paddled the circumference of the lake which takes me about forty-five minutes…about an hour and a half today with the waves from the wind and the wake of the speed-boat towing the summer camp kids in tubes. It was hot with a nice breeze — a welcome change from the thick blanket of humidity smothering Ontario and Quebec the past three weeks during what is now an annual heatwave in our country.

My Shadow — D. Barsotti 2024

It was a pleasant day for a paddle and everyone out in their canoes, kayaks and paddleboards were smiling and friendly. I never said hello, or exchanged pleasantries with so many people on the water in my entire five years of paddleboarding.

As I hit the home stretch of my journey, I tucked into the lagoon as I usually do (with Logan) in my search for Mr Turtle, or Carl, as every wild creature is called by the members of our family. I made my way through the weeds and the lilypads looking into the clear water for the ginormous beast. As per usual, I didn’t find him because let’s face it, it was probably a one time sighting but about eight feet away from me on a bed of lilypads, was a turtle about the size of both my hands — so 32 cenitmetres (approximately 14.5 inches) — just looking right at me. I continued to paddle towards it and he just stayed there, staring at me until I was about just over a metre (just over three feet) away. In a flash it dived into the water and swam away. I paddled in the general area of the ripples but didn’t see it but what I did have was a big smile on my face.

Even though I didn’t have anyone to share it with, it was a beautifully perfect moment. As the turtle and I eyeballed each other, I felt so calm and at peace all I could think of was how in that short time, everything in my life was just as it needed to be. I wanted nothing, needed nothing and I was fortunate enough to have a wordless moment with another living creature, sharing the lake with me.

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How We Prepared Our Child With Autism To Eat At A Restaurant.

One of the things that concerned us after our son Adam was diagnosed with autism, was what we would be able to do as a family — how we would incorporate him into the things we wanted to do while respecting and taking into consideration the things that were difficult for him to tollerate. I had always promised him we would do our best to meet him half way if he trusted us enough to do the same and I also promised him that we would show him how much fun things in our world could be and how much we wanted him to experience as much as he could with us by his side.

My husband and I made a list of all the things we wanted to do as a family, from simple things like going to the movies to more complicated things like going to amusement parks and concerts. Then we made a list of the things that seemed to be too difficult for him to handle and what behavior he used to communicate his discomfort to us. While we didn’t want to cause Adam any unnecessary stress, we couldn’t keep him in the house every day nor was it fair to his younger brother or us to just forgo having new experiences, creating new memories or introducing them to the things we loved to do.

The first thing on the list that we tried was going to a restaurant. We’d been to fast food restaurants occasionally and as Adam got older it was getting harder and harder for him to be there without crying, screeching, squirming his way down to the floor to lie on his side, or curl up under the table.

Adam 5, and Logan 3, — Lunch in Banff at Tony Roma’s with Mom and Dad

If we couldn’t handle being at a fast food restaurant with the noise and the lights and smells, how could we handle a sit down restaurant where we would have to wait longer for the meal to arrive? We aren’t fans of fast food eating and we thought the way to teach the kids how to be at a restaurant was to start with box-store chain restaurants where we could order something that was not wrapped in paper with greasy fries served in a paper holder. But how could we do this with Adam?

His support worker, his father and I, occasionally with the help of his little brother, Logan would mimic going to a restaurant in the playroom where they sat at the toddler table. I had a radio playing quietly in the background, I made simple picture enhanced, menus for Karen, our support worker (and impromptu waitress) to give to the boys and their dad, Tom, prepared the meals in our kitchen, rang a bell when the orders were up and Karen delivered them to the table.

Example of a simple PEC menu similar to the one I made when we mimicked going to a restaurant in the playroom.

We practiced and practiced “The Restaurant” game every day for about two months and still I was wasn’t certain it would go well. I wanted to set Adam and our family up for success so… I put my thinking cap back on and called our local Montana’s on Sarcee Trail in Calgary and asked to speak to the manager.

The place it all began — It’s been modernized but this is a photo of the Montana’s on Sarcee Trail in Calgary that helped make dining out as a family easy

I explained to her that we liked eating out once in a while and wanted to bring our family for a meal, however, we had a twist — we had to accommodate Adam’s autism so that we could not just eat out together but get him used to the atmosphere of the restaurant. She asked me what I had in mind and I told her that I was looking to eat during their quietest time of day. I told her that we would need a booth to seat him between my husband and myself, a booster seat for our other son Logan and I asked if we could pre-order our meal because Adam struggled with waiting.

I was fully prepared for her to tell me that she could not accommodate us — after all it was a busy restaurant of a popular chain and I was looking to have all this happen on the weekend. However, she was very kind and told me that it would be her honor to help us have this family experience. She sent a menu to our house and suggested we aim for the coming Saturday at two pm, since that was their quietest time. She told me she would turn off all the TV’s but the one at the bar that could not be seen from our booth and she would give us a designated waiter who would see to it that all our requests and needs were handled and that our order was ready to be served shortly after we arrived.

Just as I had asked, we had a booth and a booster seat. Adam and Logan were shown the menus and they pointed out what they wanted which was always the same — chicken tenders, fries and fruit and raw veggies on the side and it was brought to us within five minutes of us being seated. At that hour, there really was no noise in the restaurant and Adam was able to sit in his seat between Tom and me and eat his food, never once slithering all the way to the floor and trying to run away from the table. He never cried; never screamed. He ate, he coloured on the brownpaper “tablecloth” they spread on the table at Montana’s and just like our waiter, he learned to write his name upside down.

By the fourth or fifth month of us doing this, Beno, our designated waiter (who later became one of Adam’s support workers), worked with us to tweak the restaurant plan. We started going every other Saturday as usual but at one-thirty, then at one-fifteen, then one pm and worked our way to dining at noon. We introduced the restaurant ambient noise gradually, allowing Adam to listen to music wearing his ear buds whenever the noise got to be too much (something he still does at twenty-five). We increased colouring time by having the food come eight then ten minutes after we’d been seated and then pushed it to fifteen minutes and before we knew it, he was able to wait on the food to be prepared and then brought to the table. Adam learned to be in a restaurant setting so well, that our monthly visit to Montana’s became a twice monthly visit — one Saturday a month after swimming lessons and the other after dad came home from work on a Friday night.

Yes, that’s right, after eight months of learning to eat out at a restaurant, we were able to go out to Montana’s for a family dinner.

There were no more meltdowns, no more trying to lie on the floor or crawl away from the table — there was only sitting, eating, colouring, listening to music and even attempts at speaking.

Logan 10, and Adam 12 experiencing brain freeze at TGI Fridays in Niagra Falls, Ontario.

Our sons have long moved out of our home — yep, we are empty nesters now — and we occasionally go for dinner with one or both of them when their schedules permit. We go to all sorts of restaurants and sometimes, Adam, who has his favourite spots, will dine without his earbuds and will chat with us, while other times he’ll wear them and listen to music or watch a video on his phone to drown out the background noise.

What’s important is that he has learned to cope with the things that can be disturbing to him in public settings. He has learned what he can do or use to keep himself comfortable in public spaces. What’s beautiful, is that he is spending time with us and sharing a meal and sometimes I take his presence in a restaurant with us for granted, because it’s just an ordinary thing for him to do now.

Logan 17 and Adam 19, celebrating Adam’s birthday at one of his favourite restaurants — Chuck’s Roadhouse Belleville, Ontario

And when I do think about it, it seems like it was just yesterday that I’d call in our order and make our usual two-o’clock reservation, party of four. Who knew that our local Montana’s on Sarcee Trail in Calgary would be so accommodating and play such a significant part in preparing our son for what is to so many, just a meal at a restaurant.

But for our family, it was much more than that.

That kind gesture of a restaurant manager and a young waiter, not only taught Adam how to gradually adapt to a busy place like a restaurant, it gave us a chance to be a typical family, doing typical things and spending time together making memories. That gesture of kindness added so much to our family life but most of all, it helped shape Adam’s life and for that I will forever be grateful to the manager there in 2002–2003 and to Beno (who is probably forty years old now) wherever he may be. You changed our lives by helping us have typical family experiences and you helped shape Adam’s. And though I wish I could say it more eloquently — thank you. Thank you for giving us so much more than you could ever know.

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The Good Parts

Writing and sharing the good parts

Hello. It has been a while since I have published. I recently returned to work….well, not recently, three years ago and I am loving my new “in-my-older-years” job.

My new job took off around the same time I thought I would work on writing a memoir based on my son’s autism. I was really serious too. I had a book coach and everything. I wrote fourteen complete chapters and was on my way to twenty-one when I decided it was making me too damn sad. I wanted to write a happy book and my coach said well you just can’t write the happy stuff without diving into the not so good and painful stuff and after outlining, drafting, editing and polishing foruteen chapters, I took some time to think about whether or not I should move forward and I took into consideration how heavy the burden of this memoir had become, I decided that I damn well could just write about the happier times. I didn’t have to re-live the dark days especially now that he is doing SO well. There is always gonna be something with my son that isn’t so pleasant but that does not mean we can’t share the good times we celebrate as a family.

Besides, I gathered up my courage and I got into commercial and bit-part movie acting and I am doing well. Like REALLY WELL! AND I LOVE IT! I have had fifty-seven jobs to date and I have only been at this for three years. (Not bad for a fifty-eight-year-old, huh?) I like making a living from my acting and I like that writing is my “unpaid-free-to-share-with-all” passion.

I am happy.

My God, for the first time in years I can truly say, I AM TRULY HAPPY.

My family is happy.

And, we are healthy.

So, I am going to share our state of happy while I am able.

And who knows…it may even help someone with their autistic son or daughter.

So, stay tuned for my account of the good things over the years with our precious, talented and beautiful son. I will try my best to post every Friday and if you are a parent of a child with autism or a guardian or support person etc., let me know if I have helped you in any way. It’s nice to get to know the community of like-souls, for what are we if we don’t support each other, right?

Till Friday my dear readers….

~D~

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The Power of Words – “Parenting” Young Adult Children

Our son’s have flown from the nest — both fully gone since their nineteenth birthdays, (yes, even the son with autism) and we were pleased and proud to see them launch their lives as young men.

As when I was young, they were ready to leave because their father and I made it so. They knew how to do small repairs about the home.They built a back deck and a front porch with their father. They were shovelling snow to clear the driveway at six years of age. When they turned eight, they started doing chores around the house like dishes and laundry, yardwork and light housework, lthough the younger’s room was always a perfectly-livable-to-him, disaster.

When it came to preparing meals, Adam, (the older, with autism) did have staff to help him, but he knew how to make simple meals on his own using his smart oven. He could set the time and temperature to prepare chicken; he could make a pizza; re-heat left overs in the microwave and could make a heck of a tasty, hearty sandwich, and always washed fruit and vegetables before consuming them.

Adam NEVER went hungry.

His brother, Logan, (with eye-rolling reluctance at first) learned to cook during the Covid 19 pandemic and all the dishes I taught him are documented online, right here on Medium, fully accessible to him, with photos. Pulling out an old, dusty notebook with mother’s handwriting on yellowed pages is part of my nostalgia and will never be a part of theirs and that’s quite fine by me. My sons are young men in a digital age so anything I want them to hold on to and reference is NEVER documented on paper.

It was incredibly important to me that my children learned as they grew, to take care of themselves — especially Adam. When he was diagnosed with autism, I made it my mission to cultivate many qualities in my sons; the most important ones being happiness and independence because to me, you can’t have one without the other. When they were young, I was haunted with the idea of me not being around to get them to adulthood. Life is unpredictable and can be unkindly short, so it was a priority of mine, not to put off teaching them all I could so that they could handle themselves as adults.

At that time, some of my friends thought that I was putting a lot pressure on myself and the boys— that I seemed to be in some race with time when it came to making Adam and Logan capable of so many things, and when I reflect on my sheer physical and mental exhaustion of raising them the way we’d chosen, perhaps they were right. But it wasn’t like their lives were devoid of fun and fantasy. I was married to the king of fun and he made sure their childhood was not misspent or lacking in awe and wonder. I might have taught them a lot of life skills quickly but it was the only way I knew how to parent the children we had by being myself and sticking to my beliefs. I was, and still am a person who is always thinking two or three years ahead, especially when it concerns parenting someone with special needs.

I spoke to Adam’s psychologist about this and he told me not to be insulted by his observation of me, as he went on to explain that in his professional opinion, I was quite male in my outlook and that it served me well. I knew what he meant right away and had quite the chuckle.

I am an ‘if it’s not bleeding or broken dust yourself off and give it another go’ kind of mother. I have a deep voice and while I was able to use it to soothe and comfort my kids, I was never able to speak to them in light, higher-pitched baby speak. They were large, strong babies, toddlers and kids who enjoyed rambunctious play, and I was happy to indulge their roughhousing as much as I was happy to read and sing to, hold, hug and kiss them. I look, and present as Mom but I do share traits possessed by their father whereby I see things in a cause and effect way. So, in my mind, as their mother it translated to I loved them, ergo it was my duty to teach them. I believed that by teaching them I would foster their confidence and independence and they would be better prepared to take the one foot that was still planted in teen-hood and place it with the other in adulthood as they exited adolescence.

Adam’s psychologist agreed I seemed to be very A or B in my outlook on most things and he was right. I guess having a child with autism does not afford you the opportunity to procrastinate or be wishy-washy about anything. Living with Adam’s autism meant we had to be decisive. In a crunch when he was not coping well with a situation (remember we also had to take into consideration how Logan would be affected by what was going on with Adam) it was imperative that we asscess quickly, think quickly and act and move forward quickly and without doubt.

For us, there was never any value in negotiating with our children when they were young — especially Adam. Talking too much, being overly emotional was useless in parenting disastrous behaviorial moments that were stressful to all of us. Tom and I had to treat and street . We had to shut down behaviors firmly, calmly and later when the young ‘perpetrator’ converned was in a receptive mood, briefly and simply explain why we did what we did, always reminding him that we corrected him because we we loved and cared about him. We saw no point and no gain for our sons through coddling and I suppose if you can put any belief in Adam being born to us because we were the right parents for him, then I am proud that we chose our parenting path and stayed on it.

If I had to choose my greatest strength as their mother, I would pick my ease with language. I have always known how to talk to each of my sons in a way he could understand. As they got older, I embraced the power of my words through emailing and particularly texting with them because of its immediate delivery. The bumps, bruises and their tearful chats with me at the kitchen table or lying beside them in their beds were the problems of a childhood past and their adult burdens are now soothed by the healing and encouraging power of my words.

In a time when the world is moving so quickly and there is so much violence, hatred and pain, it can be hard for my young men to see the joy and the good that I promised them will always exist. My words, help them find the serenety they seek, and help them make sense of the confusion that is presented to them sometimes on the daily. My words remind them of who they are and that they are loved.

My younger son is supposed to be living his dream right now and for the most part he is. He is playing NCAA ice hockey and studying kinesiology. He is strong on the ice and is strong academically and has been on the Dean’s list every semester. This however is the hardest year for the team. The losses have been insurmountable and it is clear that after eleven seasons (this being the worst) the coach is struggling to find ways to utilize what is a collection of very talented and highly skilled players in the most effective way to produce wins. The players know it and have approched the athletic director of the school and while parents have spoken about it amongst themselves, (and I am sure a few have reached out to the athletic director as well) our sons are adults and as parents we are merely spectators and must behave accordingly.

As his parents, my husband and I can only listen to, and support our son and give advice if and when he asks for it. We have noticed that often when there has been an issue when we would have stepped in and helped him in his youth, the phone call we get now is merely an account of what happened and what he did to rectify it. We have now had almost four years of him calling us to tell us about a problem he has solved. Whether his approach was different from the one we would have taken, we listen and appreciate that he has learned to manage himself in his still, new journey as an adult.

I am sharing the text messages between us this morning.

With just three games to limp through before they put this dying season to rest, it has been difficult for him and his teammates to play for this coach, who albeit a nice person, is in over his head at this level of competition. My son and many others on the team are already weighing their options with their advisors as to where they should play and continue their academics next season and you can feel the tension these decisions are creating when you go to the games. Disbanding a brotherhood and disrupting the camaraderie is anguishing and as Mom, all I have to offer are my words.

This is what I said to him –

“Good morning, my son. Today is day two of the snow storm in our area and unfortunately we will not be able to see you play in person as planned but we will live-stream the game tonight and cheer for the team in the warmth and safety of ‘the sports-cave’ — lol.

Today, I woke up early remembering how you would run into our bedroom and whip open the curtains and say, ‘it’s a morning day!’ You were ready to play at 5:30 a.m. every day — lol — much to your tired dad’s exasperation. 🙂

I know you are an adult now but whenever you can, tap into that 4-year-old kid and embrace the joy of being alive. Every day is a new opportunity no matter how crap the day before and remember to just enjoy what you do and who you are. Because the truth about you, Logan, is joyous and beautiful. No one and no situation can ever take that away. I see it in you even now, so today, enjoy EVERY moment. Enjoy everything learned, every step you walk, every bite you eat, every word you say and every time your skate blades hit the ice. Enjoy it because YOU are happiness. YOU are joy and even if things don’t go exactly your way, know that you were still able to be healthy and alive to experience it.

Have fun tonight.

HAVE FUN.

Skate and play with joy, and if you don’t skate for whatever reason or decision, just know that you are still YOU, and you are still LOVED and this is just one night and there is still so much for you to do in the world. HAVE AN AMAZING DAY, SON! Love you more than you know, ❤ Mom.”

And within five minutes I received —

“Thank you so much Momma. I really loved reading that and I really love you. Thank you for being you and that is, not only the best mom ever, but the best human on this earth. I love ya and I can’t wait to play for you guys tonight and to have fun doing what I love and what I was meant to do.”

As flattering as his comment was, it’s not about me scoring points in the mothering department. Far from it. My older son cannot express himself the way his younger brother can but when I text him or speak to him in the car, the gentle squeeze of his hands on mine, lets me know that he too has felt my love and support.

That’s all they need from me and their father moving forward. These days, I can’t give them much more than a listening ear and occasionally, my words. I can only hug them and kiss their stubbly cheeks when I see them and that is not often. They have grown and they are gone most of the year. They have new people in their lives who fill the voids their father and I cannot.

I look back on our parenting and I am proud of the way we chose to raise them and acknowledge all the mistakes and misteps made along the way knowing that without apologizing for them to the boys, we would not have developed the strong rapport their father and I have with them today.

I love our sons and I am proud of them and even if all I can do is bandage their adult wounds with my words. I take comfort in the thought that my words will boost them in some small way to live confidently trusing their intuition and having the courage of their conviction to be their best selves.

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The Summer of Logan (2024)

Isle Chile

Isle Chile

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The Summer of Logan

The summer of Logan began when he came home from university in May. He had a successful school year, but the hockey team had a tough season. I saw him shed the load of school and sport the minute he walked through the door. Happy to be home and surrounded by everything mundane and familiar, he took two weeks to unwind, secure a summer job, set up his training program at the gym and the arena and brought the paddle boards down from the loft.

For five years, when the paddle boards descended, summer had officially begun. These boards were the evolution of the boogie boards that were shoved into my car every summer since my boys were five and seven years old. We live near five Provincial Park beaches and having grown up in Trinidad, it was no wonder it was important to me to maintain a connection to the water and make beach-going a part of my boys’ lives.

The first of many photos like this
The last time we took a photo like this “Mom,” Adam protested “I have armpit hair. Please stop!”

Whether it is one upon which warm, salty waves crash or crisp, cool, fresh-water ones lap onto the shore, there is something calming about the beach. I have always found it easy to think at the beach. It is the place where everything comes together and makes sense and It is the one place I truly relax and find peace.

Adam and Logan growing up on the beach at SandbanksP.P.

In this summer of Logan, the weather was almost perfect. The air smelled cleaner; the sound of the water, the rustling of leaves in the wind and the shrieks of seagulls in flight were louder without being a burden on the senses. Just as in years gone by, I was drawn to the beach this summer. The shush of the waves, the wind in my face that swirled up into my hair, launching my grey curls into the air like kites, soothed me, put a smile on my face and I believe it continues to have a similar effect on my sons. For Adam, the beach is a place where his autism does not collide with the noise and sensory overload of everyday life and for Logan, it is the place where he is able to organize his thoughts and get in-tune with himself.

Tween and teen — Logan and Adam — hockey and snorkelling at the beach

While navigating his way through life has been a daily challenge for Adam, growing up with an autistic brother wasn’t always easy for Logan.

Logan during his collecting driftwood phase

I have always maintained that autism is a family diagnosis — one person in the family may have the signs and symptoms of the neurological condition but in order to be a family, everyone has to learn how to live with it’s challenges. Born second, but the older brother in many ways, Logan accepts and understands Adam in a way I always hoped he would but never demanded or expected of him. At twenty-two, he incorporates Adam into his life by creating Adam-friendly outings Adam can not only tolerate but look forward to and enjoy. There have been many bright and hopeful days surrounding Adam’s autism and there have been just as many dark and dampened ones, but Logan has never dwelled on the latter. Instead, he draws upon the good memories of the childhood he and Adam shared especially the ones of our days spent at the beach.

As a teenager Logan wouldn’t pass up a chance to go to the beach, even when I wasn’t cool.
8-year-old Logan

The summer of Logan is in essence my Summer of Logan as it is our fifth year of paddleboarding together, sometimes as early as eight-thirty in the morning. I picked up the activity when I was fifty-two and Logan was seventeen. Older and achier from nagging dance and sport injuries, standing on a board floating even in the stillest of water had been a constant challenge.

My paddle boarding shadow

But I refused to give up. This wasn’t just a fad — an expensive something undertaking that I would eventually chalk up as too difficult to master and cast aside. I bought the board, and I was determined to master riding it.

Having Logan accompany me to the beach when he was a teenager was nice but with him being sure-footed and a natural on the water, I understood it was more fun for him to cross the lake without having to wait on his slow and unsteady mother. So, while he ventured across the lake, diving off the board, doing yoga handstands on it and radiating youth and vitality, I worked on maintaining my nerve and balance, paddling closer to the shore. Over time I made progress and could hold my own paddling beside my son along the shore but dropping to my knees when I joined him in a cross-lake paddle.

Looking (without success) for the resident giant snapping turtle usually out sunning himself at 8 am

Now twenty-two, Logan has turned me into a damn good paddle boarder. I’m not sure if he had an agenda, but he took me from still-wobbly-mediocre-mom on a paddle board to mom-who-stands-on-the-board-like she-was-born-doing-it. Not only did I get onto the board without worrying about my balance this summer, but I also stopped thinking about trying to stay upright. And for the first time in five summers, I was able to stand up on my board, cross the lake with my son and enjoy the natural beauty around me. I wasn’t looking at the weeds below the water but to where swans were teaching their cygnets to fly. The irony of me getting to see birds teaching their young while my son taught me how to stabilize myself on a paddle board was not lost on me.

All their lives, I taught my boys how to do things. I taught them to read, write and to count; how to brush their teeth and tie their shoes. I taught them how to do their laundry, how to manage their money and how to cook. I was the one who led them to the waterfront on their bikes. I took them to the beach and taught them how to ride waves on a boogie board. Now, the tables have turned, and I find myself happy and excited to learn new things from my adult children.

Logan’s approach to instruction is quite Zen. He had far more patience than I would have had trying to teach someone like me to get it together on a paddle board. He calmly let me know that I already mastered balancing on the board and that all I had to do was get out of my head. I had to simply stand on the board, forget about balancing, soften my knees and relax my feet and just look ahead and take in the exquisite view, knowing that my body already knew what to do. I stopped hyper-focusing on balance, and started paddling with longer, faster strokes in order to keep up with my teacher as we crossed the lake. Then, came the tip that took me to the next level — my grip on the oar was wrong. I was working too hard. With a simple adjustment of my hands keeping them shoulder width apart on the oar and a subtly put an earworm of a mantra (bend and straighten, bend and straighten) into my brain to make my arms move much like the push rods on the wheels of a steam train.

The last stumbling block I faced was two-fold. Unlike my son, I do not possess a core of steel and was often betrayed by my wanting mid-section muscles. I could not maintain my balance with the puny wake of a jet-ski, let alone a speed boat and I would either drop to my knees on the board for fear of falling or would plunge into the weedy water and struggle for what seemed like an hour to get my sorry self back onto my board.

So, Logan fixed the issue. And he fixed it in a way that no one in my family has ever tried to do when it came to teaching me how to do things. I was used to my father, rolling his eyes, raising his voice, sucking his teeth and giving up on me. He wasn’t a patient teacher, yet somehow, I learned the basics of riding a bike, swimming and most sports from my father and perfected the skills over time on my own. When I fell into the weediest part of the lake, my son casually paddled back to where I was floundering and exhausted. In his most soothing and encouraging no-fuss voice, Logan talked me through the steps I needed to take to get myself back up and standing on the board. He was so confident in my ability to haul myself out of the deep water, that I started to get my second wind and was determined to free my legs from the icky caress of the weeds and resume paddling back to the beach with him.

An example of the abundant weeds waiting to tickle your arms and legs if you fall in.

In spite of the life jacket that felt like it doubled in size in that moment, I grabbed onto the centre handle with my right hand, steadied the board with my left and whipped my right leg onto the surface and hauled my body onto it. It wasn’t graceful nor was it pretty, but I did it and it was not until I was riding back home with him in the car that I realized he never jumped in the water to help me. He never tried to pull me back onto the board. He simply paddled close by and talked me through what had to be done.

In the days that followed, he instructed me less because I was getting better at this paddle boarding thing. Occasionally, when we paddled through wavier parts of the lake he would remind me to engage my core and relax my legs and put a little umph into my paddling so we could get past the wake from a passing boat. He was always looking out for me, and he complimented me on how far I’d come. I think he’s pretty proud of his momma’s progress this summer and that makes me happy.

The beach was my gift to them every year since we moved to the area seventeen years ago. It was where they could run wild, jump into the waves on windy days or run miles away from shore toward the horizon when the tide was low. At least twice a week, we’d buy fast food and snacks and have lunch on the beach, swim and build sandcastles until seven pm. The most beautiful photographs of my boys were all taken at the beach, and it wasn’t until I realized (even in adolescence) they never missed a chance to come with me to the beach, that I was sure they truly appreciated our time spent there. It was never boring, or too far away — it was, and still is that thing we do together.

This summer, Logan re-gifted the beach to me, and it has been the best present. Mastering paddle boarding allowed me to relax while drifting on the water enjoying the peace of nature with my beautiful boy. As the summer draws to an end and he heads back to school, he is leaving me with memories of a summer I will cherish forever. I am grateful for the conversations we had paddling side by side. I will smile at the jokes we shared and will re-tell the story of the crazy day when we became rescue rangers to the summer-campers stranded in the lake when their boat engine quit.

It will always be the summer I learned more than just paddle boarding from my kid. It was the summer I learned about the man he has become and the man he will evolve into as he pursues his dreams. I don’t know how many more summers he will grace us with his presence but that’s okay. His life will take him wherever he needs to go but I will always have the summer of Logan, held in my heart.

Me, crossing the lake this summer
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Customer Service is Dead

Customer Service does not exist. It died when we stopped raising humans to care — when we allowed them to fill a position, clock in right at the start of the hour, clock out not a second past their shift because that’s all they got paid for. Nine to five and not a second more.

Customer Service is a title only. The onus is on the client to come up with as much information as possible and basically hand them more than they need wrap it up in a big red bow and then we are put on hold — where we wait, becuase no one can answer a question right away. Not even a simple one. The customer asks the question, the question is repeated, the customer says yes and then is put on hold to listen to music that is pretty much shared by multiple cooperations.

I am not one to get irrate or swear when I am trying to get service assistance. In fact, I am quite the opposite. Shit happens and it’s no one’s fault most of the time, so I think it is ponly right to politely call, state the problem and work with someone to have the problem solved. However, lately, I find staying calm and polite (yet I somehow do) really tough to do.

I was recently charged twice, six times by a money transfer company. I used the company to send money from Canada to my son who is studying in the US and for the most part it was easy. But one day I received an email asking if I had sent the transfer to my son and I confirmed that I had. And then I received another email the next time I sent him money and so I decided to give the transfer company a call.

Of course I had to find the correct number first and when I finally got a hold of someone, I was told, everything was fine, my son had received the money and I was to ignore the emails that were apparently sent in error. So, whenever I got these emails, I ignored them — that is until I noticed that on six occasions my account was debited twice for every transaction.

I called the company again and I spoke to service rep after service rep and this went on for a month. I called my home bank — a Canadian bank to see if they could perhaps reach out and have the extra debits reversed and they sent the transfer company an email requesting that each of the six transactions be reversed. A week later my bank forwarded me the email they got back from the transfer company that said they only got money once from me and that I should call their customer service and provide proof that I was indeed debited twice (which I had already done) and they would help me.

After a month of acknowledging that they did see that I was debited twice, I was told that I had to “let the issue go” because they can’t find where the money went and as far as they knew they received the money only once for each transaction. And so, after sending them statements from my son’s account to show that he only received money once and sending statements from my account showing duplicate debits that had the company’s name in the description, I called my bank again.

That’s where I learned that my bank’s customer service was no better. I was treated quite nicely in the beginning and was told because I was a prestige client (which I didn’t know I was) I was going to be transferred to another representative. After getting disconnected three times I finally spoke to a rude person who told me that they were about to close and after reviewing the details, there was nothing they could do to help me and I have to just realize that and move on.

WOW!

Insulted the same way by two different companies over the same issue. Isn’t that just the pinnacle of top notch client care.

Having worked in banking for years I know that when money is received and it is not certain where it is to be placed, the client is to be contacted and in the meantime the money goes into a suspense account until further information is received and then the last solution is to return the money to the originating bank.

Unless money is stolen, it doesn’t just disappear especially today where technology makes financial transactions easier than they have ever been.

I was angry and frustrated but I was not about to give up. I was missing over two thousand dollars and I wanted it back.

I knew I was right.

I had the proof.

And, I was frigging done being patient and polite. I had been patient and polite for a month and I got nowhere because one department just wouldn’t talk to another. No one did anything beyond their capabilities to help me.

No one at the transfer company. No one at my bank.

After calling in repeatedly and following up and speaking to different representative after different representative and re-iterating myself and speaking slowly and as simply as possible because I never got a person who was fluent in any of the three languages I speak…I decided I was going to call the Better Business Bureau.

I sent in all the documentation with my complaint and wouldn’t you know in just two business days I saw the refund of each of the duplicate six transactionsdeposited into my account to the total of two thousand plus dollars.

There was no apology from the transfer company but I didn’t care at that point. I was just amazed that in just two days I got my money back because I went to the Better Business Bureau.

Maybe some people give up and go away but I am here to tell you don’t do it. Don’t go away and make it easy for them. If you are right and you hve proof, fight back. Big companies think people will grow weary and drop the issue. But I don’t tire easily. I just get bloody angry and I will keep going until I get the justice I deserve. I wasn’t in the wrong here, they were and they needed to know that I wasn’t letting them get away with keeping my money.

Of course the transfer company and my bank had the audacity to ask me to complete a survey on how my service was and I was honest. I took the time to fill out the surveys and tell them they were a big bag of crap. And of course they could not stop there, they wanted to schedule a phone call to talk about what they could do better and I declined because I had already spent what was already a very trying month, trying to get them to help me only to be told to basically “EFF-OFF”.

But here is what I will do —

I am going to tell everyone I know not to use the transfer company in question even though they have a five-star rating.

I will tell everyone I know about the rudeness I faced at my bank where I have been banking longer than my adult children have been alive and I will urge people working on the front line of service to give a shit about what they do and put themselves in the shoes of the customer. If you work in a predominantly English speaking country and you choose to work in Customer Service, learn to speak and comprehend English. If you are serving a Spanish-speaking or French-speaking community, be able to speak and comprehend Spanish or French or Dutch or German or the language of whomever you are providing service to and lastly… just care for crying out loud. Care about the job you do. Maybe you’ll like it a little more and if not, quit and get another job that you’re more suited to.

Just two days after my situation was resolved, my friend had a discrepancy over a vacation booking where one department kept refunding his internet package charge and another kept telling him he could lose his booking because he hadn’t settled the account on his vacation. It took two weeks before he was able to speak to someome who was able to rectify the situation and secure his booking and provide him with a letter he could show before boarding as a “just in case” he needed to proove that hehad indeed paid his fare in full.

As I write this, my husband is trying to speak to someone at his auto insurance company for the seventh time in two weeks to make arrangements to have his winshield replaced because it has a rock chip on his winshield that has become a huge crack. The poor mand has not been able to get anyone at the insurance company to understand that his policy clearly states that he pays the deductible and the cost of the winshield and labour is covered. He has been on the phone for two hours and forty eight minutes after speaking to six different representatives.

Ah, he has just given me the thumbs up. It sems that he has succeeded in getting a person who understands the problem because they speak and iunderstand English. And no, I am not being biased or racist here. I am simply sayoing that if you are in service providing client care to people who speak English, speak English well. If you are providing client care for people speaking German, speak and understand German.

Yes!

I am happy to report that the agent helping my husband has completely understood that while my husband would pay the total cost upon repair, the insurance company would refund him everything except the five hundred dollar deductible.

The appointment has been made to get the winshield replaced.

The phone call has ended

Two hours and forty minutes later.

Do you agree there is a problem?

Do you agree that something needs to be done?

Meanwhile, since we are clearly on a roll, our new coffee machine (three months old) has stopped working. and my husband has to call their customer service hotline that deals with appliances that are under warranty because their department closes early on Fridays.

I wish him luck, I really do because he needs it as Customer Service is dead.

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The Wrong Shade of Dark— How rejection from a group made me realize I didn’t need to belong.

Just before the pandemic, I was watching a Canadian national news morning show on television and a wonderful story about a group of parents of children with autism who were starting a support group for Black parents. I listened to the interview and being from the Caribbean, and my face lit up when I heard their accents because it felt like home.

I am from the Caribbean.

I have the accent.

I am connected to my culture, and I so miss the tropical sun.

I have an adult autistic son.

I even had a charity in my community that I ran for parents for children with autism to help us get the things our kids need to live their daily lives — things like tablets to help them communicate, weighted blankets and vests etc. I had since passed the charity along to some younger mothers so that I could focus on the difficult task of raising my then teenaged autistic son.

I had something to contribute. I could share my experiences.

This could be a group for me.

When I saw the news story and heard what they wanted to achieve, I understood where they were coming from. Having a cultural connection and having the immigrant experience certainly helps if you are also a parent of a child with special needs.

Having a group that understands you makes it a little easier.

I decided to reach out to them via their Facebook page as they suggested in the news story, excited to be a part of a group again now that my son was older and living independently. I was looking forward to learning new things and listening to their stories and sharing my experience with my son. I had been through a lot with him, and I might have useful ideas for others looking for answers.

Not a fan of Facebook, I put aside my reservations about the platform and logged into my hardly used account and looked them up. I found them easily and I sent them a private message asking for information on how I could be part of the group even though they were stationed in Toronto and was two hours outside of the city.

In about an hour I received a lovely welcome message from the founder and was told that I could come to meetings whenever I happened to be in the city but could certainly connect regularly on Facebook.

I was thrilled. I was going to be part of something that I could be connected to by more than just autism — I would be a part of a distinct group that would understand my cultural idioms — a group where I could be myself and talk about my son’s autism open and honestly without having to be mindful of how much I moved my hands, or the nuances in my tone that were usually mistaken for anger or upset whenever I spoke before Canadians.

Twenty minutes after I was rejoicing about my inclusion in this group, I received another message from another person — another administrator connected to the group who wrote,

“We just were discussing your membership and we wanted to impress upon you that this is a group for Black and Caribbean parents and their children only. Your son has curly hair, but he looks very fair and you look more South Asian than Caribbean. We are not denying that you are from the Caribbean, but we do not see you as Black or Caribbean and we do not feel that your presence in the group will make other members darker than you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps there is another group you can join. Maybe one for South Asian people or maybe start your own.”

I read the message and shared it with my husband, sister and cousins who were irate. Try telling Caribbean people they are not Caribbean when we are quite distinct.

There are all colours and creeds living in the Caribbean and it is a hell of a feeling being told that it does not matter that your autistic son’s hair is curly; it doesn’t matter that you sound the way you do or that you can really offer good ideas to parents of a similar cultural background to you with younger children with autism and really make a difference in their lives — you not dark enough and your eyes are too slanted. We haven’t met you. We don’t know you, but we know WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE.

Well, I just passed on my charity to two other moms, and I did not live in a very ethnically diverse community so that wasn’t an option. I am extremely mixed race. I am not South Asian, and I if I tried to join such a group as the message suggested, I wouldn’t have anything in common with the members.

But okay, Black and Caribbean Autism Parent Group — message received.

I thought about what I should say to this person.

How did I really feel about this?

I wasn’t really angry.

I wasn’t very upset.

Perhaps I was feeling…I don’t know, numb from the shock of the message?

I do know I felt misled and flabbergasted. I was under the impression the group was for Black and Caribbean parents, so I reached out.

I took some time to process what I was going to say and after a couple hours, I sent a message back to the gate keeper that simply said,

“I received your message. Best of luck to you and your members and I wish you much love and success with your unique and beautiful children.”

My cousins told me I should do something loud about it. Call the network that aired the story, they said. Write something in paper. Blast them on social media — but for what? To get back at them? What good would that do? Why should I jeopardize the other families in the group or the progress they were making with their children because they were able to gather.

To those who loved me , it might have looked like it, but I wasn’t walking away with my tail between my legs. I was walking away because a group l that opens it’s doors on national television and says Caribbean and Black people welcome, who then turns around and says something else to Caribbean people wanting to join; telling them that their skin, and their child’s skin aren’t dark enough, is not something I want to be a part of.

Sure, I was taken aback and yeah, perhaps a little angry by the message but I wasn’t devastated.

At the end of the day, the main focus for me was the children with autism and the obstacles that not only the children face, but their families too. There was no need to make a scene.

So, I bowed out gracefully. I’m in my fifties and my explosive days are over. My power lies in what I do and not in how loud I can bellow. Perhaps this is why it has taken this long for me to write about this experience. For me, this rejection sparked self-reflection — it was a time to make decisions about the topic of support groups and if I really needed to be in one.

As the situation occupied my mind that week, I concluded that the group needed to just be branded as a group for Black parents of children with autism. Black parents and Black children from anywhere — Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, South America — Black with an autistic child.

Done.

No blurry lines that inadvertently extend invitations to other people they do not want sitting among them or sharing space with them on Social Media.

I also realized that I was no longer all about autism.

In fact, I always strived not to be even while raising my children. Having a typical child as well, I ran a 50/50 ship where we tried to see things from our autistic son’s perspective as best as we could, and we helped him come into our world and help him cope with all the sights, sounds, and smells that could be so hard for him to endure.

We encouraged him without forcing him, but we always had high expectations of him, because we knew he was in there, he just needed outlets to bring out who he was.

So, we all got to work to make it happen.

At one time there were four jobs between me and my husband just to make sure our kids had what they needed to get out in the community to participate in the things that would enrich their lives and we worked damn hard to pay for all the extra things our autistic son needed to give him an outlet for his voice, his emotions, and his creativity.

I thought about my autistic son the week I received the rejection message and I realized I didn’t need a group.

My son was an adult living on his own with a support staff to keep him on track. He could cook, wash his clothes, and run his day to day life. He graduated high school and decided against taking part in the specialized College Program at the local campus and instead went straight to work in our community. He was involved in two Special Olympics sports that kept his physically training for both the summer and the winter games, which kept him in the Division 1–3 athlete, which meant he was super fast and competitive. My son can read and write and spells impeccably because I’d been teaching him since I got him to look at me when he was three years old — eye contact — a skill that is so difficult for persons with autism to master. If they don’t look, they don’t learn, and I got him to look at me by thinking outside the box.

My son is a singer, a drummer, and an artist. He took up kayaking five years ago because he could, and he loves it. He is trying to improve his social skills by attending co-ed gatherings and dances. He still has his struggles, but he’s doing okay. You can’t really tell he has autism until you’ve spent about half an hour with him.

My son is happy and so is my family.

We’ve gotten through some very tough times that only the four of us know about and perhaps, I don’t want to share our journey with a group. Maybe it’s best if I kept what we did to help him to myself. Or maybe I can share what we did in other ways. I’m not sure.

As I reflected, I asked myself if I really wanted to give other parents advice. No one ever really advised me. I read a lot, researched everything and I made plans on how to teach him everything he knows, and I made plans on how to get him over the hurdles he faced so many times.

Autism isn’t a one size fits all condition. Every child with autism is different and it is up to parents to look at their child and find those outside the box ways to enhance their lives just like my husband and I did.

Who am I to tell parents what they should and shouldn’t try?

I’m nobody. I’m just my son’s mother and I know him. I don’t know their child.

I also realized, I no longer wanted to sit in what was often a dismal atmosphere. Autism is hard and I guess, the more I thought about being in a group, the more I realized that maybe hearing other people’s difficulties would drag me back to a time I’d rather not think about.

We have moved on from those days as a family. When we reflect on the darker things it’s momentary and often followed up by memories of the more pleasant side of having our special son in our lives. We are truly blessed that he is part of our family.

Being rejected by this group too, was a blessing because encouraged me to take on two very challenging yet rewarding projects in my middle age that I’d put aside for quite some time because I was busy raising my children. With them grown and gone, I suddenly have so much time back to spend doing new things. I speak three languages now and I am busy with my new projects. I don’t need to be in autism central anymore…. not that I ever really was. I think it’s because I saw the difficult times with my son as mere obstacles to what is a beautiful life.

My son has a beautiful life.

He does more in a day than most typically developed people do and he has great purpose and a lot of pride in himself.

I am done.

My boys are independent, kind, generous, respectful, and responsible adults.

We have a beautiful relationship.

They are in a good place, and I have to focus on me now. And I have to focus on the years my husband and I have left together. Our time is important and very valuable to us, and we have to spend it well.

I know who I am, and I know where I’m from and I know how well my son has done under my care, guidance and love.

The rejection of this group based on my an my son’s appearance was good for me. I realized I never needed a group and I certainly don’t need one now to know that the sun does come up after some of the darkest days of living with autism. So, I guess, the rejection was actually a favour — one which I am grateful for because I am in this new phase of my life where I do what I want to do and not what I have to do. I walk in the light everyday because I belong there, and I truly hope the parents in that group will find themselves walking in the light as well.