A Square Inch of Love

Excerpt from my book: A Time To Be Born

Christopher, my fifth child, still wasn’t talking.

I watched my nearly three-year-old son lying flat on his back in the middle of the hardwood floor, arms out, palms open, as if offering something invisible to the ceiling. His chin moved slowly in rhythm with the ceiling fan above, turning like a compass needle on a fixed course. His wide, unblinking brown eyes never left it.

“Christopher,” I called softly.

Again, “Christopher?”

Nothing. His stillness deepened, as if he were underwater and I were calling from the shore.

It was almost as if he were deaf. And yet, I knew he could hear. The moment the air conditioner kicked on with its low, humming roar, he clapped his hands tightly over his ears and whimpered.

My other children whispered, “What in the world is wrong with Christopher?” “He’s still not talking, and he’s almost three.” “He just needs to learn.”

“Give him time. Some kids talk late,” I’d say, as much to myself as to them

“Actually,” someone chimed in, “Einstein didn’t talk until he was four. He’s probably a genius.”

But deep inside, I was worried.

As his third birthday crept closer, I made a silent promise: I would teach him to say one sentence. Just one: “My name is Christopher, and I’m three.”

And one scripture: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength . . . and love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:30-31.”

We practiced every day—in the morning before the sunlight crossed the wooden floor, the quiet rhythm of the rocking chair creaking beneath me, a baby nestled at my breast, and Christopher standing at my knees.

The strange thing about him was that he could echo anything. He could mimic birdsong from outside the window, hum classical pieces, copy every syllable with uncanny precision. But mimicking words was not the same as understanding them. Nothing he ever said made any real sense.

Still, I pressed on. I imagined the moment I’d surprise Dan—Christopher standing tall to recite his verse, bright-eyed with pride.

But he still repeated every cue, including the prompt itself.

“Christopher, say: ‘You shall love the Lord . . . .’ ”

And he would say, “Christopher, say: ‘You shall love the Lord . . . .’ ”

Every time. Like a record needle stuck in place.

Up until then, I always sat in the mesquite rocker, the one with a green leather seat and a gentle back-and-forth sway that had comforted my babies. Christopher would stand before me, mimicking the scripture, his eyes flickering sideways toward my mouth.

But that morning, I felt a shift. I said, “Okay, Christopher, we’re going to show Daddy your scripture.”

He came and stood in front of me, waiting.

“No, go show Daddy,” I said, nudging him gently toward where Dan sat.

He hesitated, his small shoulders tense, then shuffled toward Dan with his head ducked.

But when I prompted him to say the scripture, he turned and came straight back to me, as if tethered.

Maybe he’s confused, I thought. So I got up and went to sit beside Dan on the couch, my empty chair left gently rocking as if remembering me.

Christopher turned toward us, then turned back, drawn to the empty rocker.

He walked to it, placed himself exactly where he always stood, and began to speak the scripture—to the chair.

My eyes burned. I pressed my hand to my mouth and watched.

I went to him, took his hand, and gently guided him toward Dan. “Say your scripture for Daddy,” I whispered.

He began to tremble. His lips quivered. And then he ran.

He ran to his room, wailing, ducked under his bed, and disappeared.

By the time I found him, he had stuffed himself—his whole body, his pillow, everything—into the pillow sham. Then he’d tucked himself in like a chrysalis, invisible, and rolled under the bed where light couldn’t reach him. His pillow poked out from under the edge, but he didn’t move. Just a mound of foam and fear.

I knew better than to try to pull him out. He didn’t want to be held when he was hurting. He wanted to disappear. To become unfindable.

That night, Dan and I lay in bed listening to the quiet creak of the house settling. I stared into the shadows. “Honey,” I said softly, “we’ve got to find out what’s going on with Christopher.”

The next day, I called my mom. I paced the front porch barefoot, one hand clutching my sweater around me, the other gripping the phone. The wood was warm beneath my feet. Bees moved lazily among the wisteria climbing the front porch railing.

I told her everything—the silence, the fan, the scripture, the pillow sham.

My sister-in-law had recently given me a book on autism. I had only ever heard the word in passing. But the more I read, the more I felt like someone was holding up a mirror to my boy.

“Well, Amanda,” my mom said gently, “we’ve been wondering for a while if something might be going on.”

“Really?” I asked. “When?”

“When y’all came up to Idaho. Last summer.” My parents sometimes spent the summer with our affiliated church community in Idaho, and we had brought the kids up to visit them there.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because,” she replied carefully, “some truths aren’t meant to land on us like a ton of bricks. We have to discover them one brick at a time. And we weren’t sure. But Daddy and I both wondered.”

Just then, my phone buzzed—another call. I blinked quickly and swallowed. I switched over to that call.

“Hello?” I said with practiced brightness.

“Hi, Amanda. Do you have those herbs ready for me?” It was Sherry, a first-time mom I’d been helping. My brain was blank as I groped the corners of my memory for what she was talking about. “The ones you said you’d have for my pregnancy?” she prompted.

“Oh! Absolutely,” I said. “Come by anytime.”

As I pinched the phone between my shoulder and ear and gathered up the little bundle of vitamins and herbs, it struck me—life does not pause. Not for diagnoses, not for pillow shams, not for worry. It just keeps asking things of you.

Later that week, Dan and I took Christopher to a specialist.

The doctor was kind, with steady eyes and soft hands. But her words didn’t soften the blow.

After the evaluation, she sat us down. “Christopher has classical autism,” she said.

She drew an arc on a paper. “This is the spectrum,” she explained. “Over here”—she pointed to one end—“are individuals who are highly functioning. They might live independent lives, and some may not even realize they have delays. Over here”—she pointed to the other end—“are people who never speak, never become independent.”

Then she marked a dot low on the arc. “I’d place Christopher about here. Just below the nonverbal line. His ‘talking’ isn’t true communication. It’s something called echolalia: repeating what he hears without understanding it.”

My stomach dropped.

“He may never say ‘Mommy,’ ” she added when I told her he hadn’t yet. “He may never want to hold your hand. But with therapy and pharmaceuticals there’s potential to manage meltdowns and possibly improve communication.”

I nodded, and we booked a follow-up for six months out.

On the drive home, I stared out the window at the blur of fields and fences. At last, I broke the silence.

“How can this be, Dan? I can train a chicken to go up into a roost at night. To lay its eggs in the right box. Christopher is smarter than a chicken! There has to be a way to bridge this chasm.”

Dan didn’t answer right away. He reached over and wrapped his fingers around mine.

After a while, he said, “Honey . . . maybe we need to stop aiming for what we view as ‘normal.’ I doubt John the Baptist or Elijah would’ve passed as normal in a developmental screening. But they played vital roles in the history of what God was doing. We just need to remove the obstacles keeping Christopher from becoming who he’s meant to be.”

Then he looked at me. “Where are you connecting with him?”

I thought for a long moment. “Nowhere,” I sighed.

He squeezed my hand. “Think about it. I bet you’ll think of something. And when you do, let’s start there.”

I thought about it all evening. And later that night, on my damp pillow, the memory came.

Whenever I pushed him on the swing, he would look back. Not just glance—look. Into my eyes. It was the only time I could think of that he made eye contact.

“We’re moving to the swing,” I whispered to the dark.

The next morning, I started early. The dew was still clinging to the grass, and the sun had only begun warming the boards of our old porch. I took Christopher by the hand, and we went to the swing.

“You’re swinging!” I said. “Up. Down. Swing! Mommy’s pushing you.”

Again and again, I pushed him. And again and again, he looked back, eyes sparkling, laughter spilling from him like water.

Everyone took turns. His big brothers and sisters and Daddy, we all pushed Christopher on the swing. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month.

And then one day—he looked back and said, clear and bright: “Up!”

It was the first meaningful word I remember him saying. And I knew we had found it, a tiny place, a flicker of light, a square inch of connection. A square inch of love. And we could grow that. We just needed that starting point.̰