In 2022, I thought a lot about my darling boy's brain, and mine

Published on 5 December 2022

Here you are, almost 5, a sprightly bundle of limbs with shining eyes. Like a little hare, you hop and you amble through the dry brambles. Your freckled hand tugs on mine.

I don’t know where you’re taking me. All the parenting books declare that parents must let the child lead, which sounds wise in principle but might be bollocks in practice, but I let you tow me anyway. 

A shrill whistle pierces the air and sharp metal fingernails rub against each other. You clap your small paws over your ears even as your eyes drink in the rusty freight train festooned with graffiti. Your body is the size of a violin. When I give you a hug, I can feel your little ribcage and the thrumming of a frantic heart beneath it. 

A memory meets me like a punch. Everyone screamed Happy New Year. Kissed. Meanwhile, I was under a table with my fingers jammed into my ears, in my own version of hell. 

Once the train chugs away, you wriggle out of my arms and scurry along. You chatter merrily about everything that snatches your interest. Robin red breast eyeing us crossly. Dog poo. Why Mama is slow. As you run, your elbows turn like windmills and your plimsolls are askew. Thrice, you stumble and fall flat on your bum. I use my words like a Band-Aid and soften my voice into a soothing salve, even as harsh taunts from the past trill in my eardrums. 

As a little girl, I was prone to small accidents. A teacher remarked that I had poor motor skills and announced my new nickname to the entire class. Moto, stop fidgeting! Moto, don’t drop the books! Mo-to. I tried to wring out affection from the word. Instead, it only dripped with disdain. 

You make a beeline for the nest swing and lie flat against the netting. An older girl in pigtails coos about your cute, chubby cheeks and gently pushes the swing. To-and-fro. Up and down. Your giggles float up toward the sky like soap bubbles. Then you turn around. Smack her hard on the nose with the heel of your palm. She doesn’t cry but she runs away as I say sorry. My heart aches for lost friends, yours and mine. 

Even in the company of my best mates I long for a quiet room and a book to gobble.

Stares from a dozen beady eyes are trained on my back. Someone hisses about ‘bad mothering’. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ears and jut my chin out, pretending to be an alien princess in disguise trapped on a hostile human planet. I’m a geriatric millennial but I still lapse into the self-preserving fantasies of my childhood. Your pediatrician said you don’t engage in imaginary play or the world of make believe. That autistic girls are better at masking and hiding their true selves because of their desire to fit in. Your laughter is like a lion’s roar, infectious and obscene, and it shatters the tension of the playground. You, my darling boy, don’t give a fuck about what other people think. Your power is more potent than any fantasy I can conjure. 

You find your spot by the artificial pond and stare at the fingerlings. A little girl presses close and you whimper. An old woman – maybe it’s her grandmother – gives us the look. 

Clucks her tongue and tells you: “You’re not the boss around here”.

It pries the diagnosis out of my mouth. I surrender information so fresh I haven’t even shared it with my parents yet. 

“Well, that’s a problem isn’t it?”

“Autism isn’t a problem.” 

My chest swells. I think about how much harder you try, more than any of the children in your class, to grasp a pencil or sit steady in a chair. How, at age 3, you once stunned the adults at a garden party by identifying passing trains just by their noise. A photographic memory and a laser focus on tiny details. These are strange gifts passed on by your Mama. I can accurately recite the family trees of Old Testament patriarchs.

Here we are. Copious amounts of wild blackberry vines are tangled round a horse chestnut tree. You clap your hands ecstatically, a tiny Moses who has found his burning bush. Eagerly, we pluck the dark fruit and stuff it in our mouths. For a second, I allow the globules to nestle in my tongue, like the darkest amethysts cushioned in a velvet pillow. A million flavours and colours explode. Your eyes shine like the purest, merriest carnival lights. A mirror image of the ecstasy in mine. It all makes sense now, thank you for leading the way. 

As I hold a blackberry in my mouth, and press on it with my teeth, the truth reveals itself: even if you were diagnosed and I wasn’t, our beautiful, different brains are the same.