After hearing he had a bad day the day before, yesterday I went to see my brother. He had a purple, swollen ear from hitting himself, bruised cartilage, they said. He excitedly took my hand and we walked out to the car together. I hadn't even had a chance to sign him out yet. As we walked out to the car I asked him what was bothering him, but got no response. I'm used to it. That's normal for him, he's autistic. We got in the car, and he ate the treats I brought for him...a banana, some peanut butter pretzel bites, and Oreo thins. As I drove along the country roads, we listened to a CD of my dad playing his guitar and harmonica. Tim cried off and on, which means I did too. At the end of our ride we stopped at Wendy's to get a small chocolate Frosty. As usual, he ate it at warp speed. After he's finished I usually take him home, but I had brought my tablet to see if I could get him to "talk" to me on it. (I haven't done that in a long time because he doesn't usually do anything with it) I asked him what was wrong as I handed him the tablet. He looked at the screen and swirled his finger around on it, without actually pushing the separate letters, and handed it back to me. Fully expecting there to be nothing legible on the screen, I read, "home". I told him what it said and asked him if it was a mistake or if he meant to say that, after all, I had no idea you could write something that way, but I tried it afterwards and found out I learned something new! He looked me in the eye and said, "Home". He wanted me to take him home... or so I thought. Maybe he did, but my sister said that maybe home is what's bothering him. I was so sure he didn't want to tell me and just wanted me to take him home (and maybe that is the case), but now I need to go back and find out what he meant. They want to move him to a new home because he's not walking great these days, so maybe he's tired of hearing about it, or dreading it (he was abused at the last one) or something. In any case, he talked to me, and that is something I always treasure.
1 comment:
I love that he answered (and that you were confused).
His answer gives me "hope" which is probably very much like the swirl that spells "home". I still wonder why he felt the need to cry. Makes me sad when he's hurting.
Thank you for going to see him.
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