See Sam Run: A Mother's Story of Autism

Year Three

Y E A R THREE Summer Vacations MARK AND I VACILLATED OVER WHETHER we could afford to spend two long semesters in Rochester. Summer school seemed feasible . Either way, we’d need more money in the bank. I applied to the state arts agency and a nonprofit arts advocacy group. I made some calls and waited to see where my job hunt would take me. Juggling a baby and a busy preschooler wasn’t as taxing as I feared. Michael was a curious baby. He didn’t cry the way Sam did as an infant. He slept easily, and for long stretches at a time. With his hearty appetite, he grew fast. He nursed on both sides, making breastfeeding easy and comfortable. Such a thing to find comfort in, I thought. Michael took his morning nap while Sam was in school. I relished the few quiet hours to myself. I cleaned the house and finished some long-neglected sewing and gardening projects. Our backyard almost looked good enough to be featured in a gardening magazine, which encouraged us to spend even more time outside with the boys. The previous homeowner, a woman who raised a daughter in the house and lived in it until she died, had filled the backyard 82 “I threw rocks in the river because I wanted to make a splash.” 84 Year Three with a wide variety of trees and flowering bushes. But like the house, the garden had been neglected for several years before we moved in. I cut back the jungle of branches and vines. I pulled many weeds to uncover the woman’s antique rose bush with its large, rich, red blooms. The Valencia orange tree, in one corner, and the Meyer lemon bush in the other, looked good with just a little pruning. Some of the overgrown vines on the patio’s south side couldn’t be tamed with the pruning shears. Mark helped me pull them out. He replaced them with one of his favorites, a fragrant purple wisteria that quickly covered the arbor over the patio until it reached the Japanese maple that shaded the north side. He had to dig for two days to remove the stump of a dead tree left in the center of the backyard. In its place, I planted a self-pollinating almond tree. The tree grew vigorously. We enjoyed its early spring bloom, although it would take a few years for the big yields to come in. I didn’t have such good luck with a pair of grapevines I planted behind the swing set. The grapes came in green and seedy each year, but I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. Since the vines were pretty, I left them alone. After I pulled weeds around the raspberries, they spread along the fence. Those sweet rubies kept producing until almost Christmas. Before breakfast, I liked to go out in my red silk sleep shirt, barefoot, and eat the ripe ones off their canes. On Sam’s last day of preschool for the year, I strapped Michael into the car and drove the two-mile route to campus to pick Sam up at noon, just as we did every day. Sam wasn’t patient enough to spend thirty long minutes riding a meandering bus route that didn’t bring him straight home for lunch. Today, though, Sam was slow in putting his blocks away. Mrs. Vargas stayed behind with Sam as the teacher’s aide took the other boys to the bus. She wanted to tell me about Sam’s progress over the past few months. “I’ve really enjoyed having Sam in my class,” Mrs. Vargas said. “He still paces during circle time, but he tries to sit with the others. Even though he isn’t in a summer program, you can read to him. You can also encourage him to write his letters and numbers so he doesn’t regress.” That meant no lazy days tubing in secret swimming holes, no laughing through silly children’s theater, no dancing along with concerts in the park. Mrs. Vargas had other ideas for Sam. I appreciated her recommendations. But outside was a fragrant, sunny late-spring day. I had visions of going to the new playground in Davis, lying down with a good book atop a thick flannel blanket. Michael would nap. Sam would explore the playground’s elaborate pattern of slides...