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Guest name: Markham Anderson
2
“The Treasure”
One of my most special and heart-warming memories of life with Connor makes me cry silently every time it pops into my head (which is quite often), even to this day. But, not sad tears… very happy ones, in fact. After my son’s mother left, it was a time of great chaos. A time of scrambling to figure out what the next step was. “How do I do this?” was a question that hung over my head like a big red cartoon question mark, lifted right off the screen of a “Batman” television episode in 1967. That big red question mark hung there suspended over my head all day, every day. Nobody had prepared me for the “reality” of what it meant to not only suddenly become a single parent, but to also become a single parent of autism. All the traditional cards were stacked against me: I was male, middle aged, disabled and living on a military pension, suffering in silence from PTSD and mild depression, on painkillers around the clock for chronic pain from my spinal cord injury, and now I was faced with raising a young child alone with virtually no support of any kind. And this was before I even found out that Connor was autistic. I knew one thing for sure, and it was an absolute. I had to “be there” for this kid in every way, shape and form. His own mother had left him. His dad, me, was but a shell of his former self. I was, at this particular stage of my life, a broken human being. None of that mattered anymore though. I had to place my focus on my boy. I am a Christian, and I have prayed daily for most of my life. But I now found myself talking to God differently. The usual prayers, the mundane ones that we all get accustomed to repeating, got put on the back burner. I had now begun to pray several times a day, every day, for God to give me the strength to make it through this ordeal. And God, being ever-patient, did begin to answer those prayers after a time. He began to answer them slowly but steadfastly after He recognized that I had stopped blaming the world. And stopped blaming Him. But it took a while. It most surely did take a while.
Normal holidays were fast becoming a blur for me, I was so stressed. The first Christmas (2006) after my son’s mother left was very hard. A young girl from Colombia, not ready for family life, she had quietly packed her things into a large suitcase three days before Christmas, and called for a cab to come pick her up at our home in Houston on a quiet and somewhat cold Tuesday morning. Connor was still sound asleep in his baby bed, and I was up making coffee. Ever since the Marines I have maintained a habit, possibly an unhealthy one, of brewing and drinking two very big cups of strong dark roast coffee every morning, at 5am. I had, and still do, feel compelled to drink my “lifer’s juice” (an affectionate Marine term for coffee) from my Marine Corps mug which features a bullet hole in the side (don’t ask). Now I am a big man, but I walk softly and quietly, possibly remnants of my training as a scout sniper, and I remember startling Connor’s mother as I came up behind her in our living room, bullet-riddled coffee cup in hand. She stood silently, her head down, and couldn’t look me in the eyes. I glanced down at her full suitcase and then saw she was fully dressed, coat on, ready to go somewhere. A horn honked twice from our driveway and we both looked. She then quickly grabbed the handle of her American Tourister, rolling out of our lives for good.
It was a couple of days before Christmas of 2008. Connor had just turned three in October (a Friday the 13th baby). The “fog of autism” as I was beginning to refer to it had invaded my little boy’s brain, had taken him over. Almost overnight he was different. Truly different. Heartbreakingly different. I decided to take him to see Santa, even though the previous year’s attempt had culminated in an utter fiasco, featuring a screaming meltdown of meltdowns right there in front of the big guy in red. I remember storming out of the mall muttering under my breath to myself, “NEVER AGAIN! NEVER!! A-G-A-I-N!!!” (I know you are laughing right now because you know we never follow through on that particular threat). So I loaded up the old GMC Yukon, that’s like a large SUV to you Yankees, and father and son drove to the rather nice mall nestled within the trendy “Woodlands” area of North Houston. Now, if you’re not from Texas, you would never understand our weather. It was Christmas, yes. But it was 82 degrees. 100% humidity. And we have an outdoor ice skating rink at the mall. Under a big white tent. Ice skating. Only in Texas.
I loaded Connor into his stroller, placed his sippy cup into the left cup holder (he would promptly move it to the left if I accidentally had placed it on the right). Father, son, and stroller (with sun canopy) rolled down the hot cement sidewalk and into the amazing air-conditioned elegance that was, “The Woodlands Mall.” After expertly navigating the large throngs of holiday shoppers we finally found the ornately decorated and vividly colorful Santa Claus set. Now, my cousin Jeffry was then one of the largest and most successful purveyors of Santa photo sets in North America, and this was one of his. He had built his holiday empire from the ground up in the early 80s, literally starting with just one mall in a not so nice part of south Houston (not too far from where Beyonce’ grew up!). I digress here only to mention that this meant that me and my son would receive a nice family discount today (I love you, Jeff). The line was long to see the jolly old elf but Connor was maintaining, even if I wasn’t. Thirty or so minutes and two packages of Mini Graham Crackers later, it was now Connor’s time to hold court with the Elf of all Elves.
Despite me talking to him all morning about Santa…..about the visit….about the toys Santa would bring him…..and despite all the smiling back at me…..Connor enacted the biggest and most elaborate meltdown I had witnessed yet, as soon as he made contact with the fat man. I mean, it was like Connor was Superman and Santa’s red pants were freakin’ Kryptonite. The kid literally catapulted off of Rent-a-Santa’s lap straight down onto the hard floor, crying and flailing his arms wildly. I say “flailing” because “waving” just can’t adequately describe what my child was doing accurately, indeed in front of a horrified dad as well as equally disturbed onlookers. Nevertheless, we took advantage of our free picture of the “Woodlands Mall Santa Claus flailing incident.” I still have it (not framed). A well dressed mother in line behind us patted me on the arm as we walked by and said, “Way to go, dad” and smiled at me. I appreciated that and thought that at least we had both tried, and someone had acknowledged it. This was one of my early lessons of autism: you can explain something a million times to your child, but in the end it’s a crap shoot if he retained and “got it.” On this Santa Claus photo taking opportunity day, Connor didn’t “get it.” But we tried. We had good intentions. Thanks anyway Jeff.
On the way out of the mall, and after father and son had calmed down a bit, I decided to buy something that maybe we could both enjoy together. As unpredictable as my son was, and given the holiday fiasco that had just occurred, one would think that I would have just gone home and fixed a strong drink or four. Maybe take a ten hour nap. But I didn’t. I come from stubborn as all get out Texas stock, and I won’t be defeated. Not by autism, and certainly not by a three year old boy, extreme cuteness and all.
Now back in 2008, we still had traditional retail music and video stores like Blockbuster and Sam Goody. I know, right? We four-wheeled it into the Blockbuster and headed straight for the kids section. After careful perusal, I picked out an animated movie I had been curious about for some time. It starred one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, was directed by one of the best directors ever, Robert Zemeckis, and featured brand new never before seen motion capture animation. The film was called “The Polar Express.” It had been a book initially, and was well received. I paid for the DVD, stopped at McDonald’s for Connor’s favorite fries and headed back home to our house on the lake.
Connor awoke from his nap later that afternoon and I had actually dozed off in front of the TV as well, after watching the sun set on the glistening water of Lake Conroe. I went about making our dinner, which consisted of mac and cheese for boy and lasagna (frozen) for man. Autism consists of and demands many and varied routines, so after dinner I bathed my boy and we laid side by side in his twin bed looking at the glow in the dark stars, planets, and moons I had glued to his ceiling a few months earlier. We did this every night for months. I jumped up for no reason, after remembering the plastic Blockbuster bag on Connor’s white rocking chair, and pulled out the DVD of “Polar Express.” My son abruptly grabbed it from my hand and started meticulously picking at the cellophane wrapper. I watched him for several minutes, as he gingerly and carefully unwrapped the movie, taking care to not tear as much of the plastic as he could. He took special interest in the barcode label, and I watched in bewilderment as he smiled at me with an odd smile and then leaning over, hid the label under his mattress near the window. What the hell was he saving a label for?! One of many questions that, over time, I just ceased asking in general. He gently handed me the empty cellophane as if to say, “Father? You may discard this trash now, please.” Anyway, that’s what I thought he might be trying to say to me. I tossed it into his metal Mickey Mouse trash can and popped the DVD into the tray of the tiny combination TV/DVD unit sitting upon my boy’s antique dresser. We laid back on his bed again and I started tickling him, also a nightly routine. Dad would tickle, resulting in highly infectious hysterical laughter. I would punctuate the tickling bouts while pointing at the glowing ceiling constellations and would yell, “Daddy’s gonna send you to the moon, buddy!” To which he would laugh until I thought he would stop breathing. Tonight though, something changed in our routine. I hadn’t noticed, but the first strains of the “Polar Express” movie theme had started, and my son was transfixed. I stopped tickling him immediately. Partly because he wasn’t laughing hysterically as usual, but mostly because I had never seen him focus so intently on anything. Ever. I have to admit, the film is truly magical. Both Connor and I were completely entranced by not only the amazing visuals, but more so by the characters and the story. He quickly found his favorite parts of the movie, and so did I that first night. Incredibly, neither of us moved on the bed for an hour and a half, we were so into it. At the closing credits, the same opening music began to play and I got up to stop the DVD, never dreaming of what would happen next. Connor stopped me. He took the remote out of my hand. He wanted to see the credits, all of them. He kept giving me a worrisome look as if to say, “No, dad. Not yet.” It wasn’t until the screen went totally black that he gently handed me back the remote, smiling at me the whole time with his sweet patented “Connor smile.” I didn’t realize it, but I had been crying. There was a big reason. God had just given us both a gift. A completely unexpected but truly amazing gift. The gift of a shared moment in time. The kind you read about in very long novels by really important authors. The kind of moment that moves you so much, that strikes at your heart and soul in such a way, as to be almost unbelievable. The story of “The Polar Express” is about the magic of Christmas and that it doesn’t ever have to “go away.” And the gift that God gave me and my son that night, a few days before Christmas of 2008, was a sharing of emotion, understanding, and love that can never and has never been matched in me and my son’s lives since. A gift of sharing that autism could not deny us. And we weren’t denied that gift. Thank you, God.
In subsequent nights Connor got more and more into the movie, and was even starting to move his lips when certain parts of songs were playing within Polar Express. He wasn’t talking, but somehow he was able to mimic pieces of the lyrics from the film. Amazed at this, I went online and copied the lyrics to every song in the movie. I learned all of them. Connor’s excitement level went up a few more notches when he saw and heard dad singing the songs he was growing to love. He jumped up and down and became very emotional, not knowing whether to cry or to laugh. I had never seen my son this way. I felt the exact same way. I experienced a sudden realization that there were TWO parts to this gift: the second half we were experiencing right now. God gave us, as unique and different as it was, a way to communicate. We were communicating. Through the shared experience of a movie. An animated movie starring Tom Hanks.
As time has gone on and years have ensued, the meaning of this film never diminishes with me, and the shared gift has not waned with my son, either. Connor is now nine years old. But even now, as I kiss him goodnight, tell him “sweet dreams,” and pat him on the backside at bedtime, the opening music of “The Polar Express” is always playing in the darkness of his bedroom. That movie has played every night for my son at bedtime since three days before Christmas in 2008. We haven’t missed a single night, that I can remember. Even if he stayed overnight with his grandmother, it still played. Even now my son still rolls over, no matter how sleepy he is, to stare at my lips as I sing, “Children….listen…..snow is gently falling…..” Thank you again, God. Thank you for this amazing two part gift. In Texas, we would call that a “two-fer.” And thank you for letting it continue to give. This gift is what I have come to refer to as “the treasure.”
I leave you now with this. Even with all of the sadness and disappointment that unfortunately often accompanies autism, know that there is hope. Know that God has a plan for each of us, for our families. My advice is to not “seek” the treasure. Rather, let the treasure find you and your autistic child. It’s out there. Let it happen. Until then, just be. Just do. Just love.
-Markham Anderson