Dear Mom,

Reading that last letter reminded me of other times like that story when I packed dust in my eyes. I remember being at the end of our front walkway by our front porch, out in the gravel road, just throwing dust in the air.

During that time, I loved motion like that. I loved to watch things fall or things be thrown up in the air. I loved motion a lot—all sorts of physical things.

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While spending some time with your older sister Helen recently, she reminded me of a story I had not thought of in a long time. It is just one more thing demonstrating how far you, and really, all of us, have come.

It was springtime in Texas, and bluebonnets fragranced the evening as Dad and I walked to choir. Hadassah, our friend, neighbor, and nanny, was babysitting you kids while we practiced for our church’s Easter concert.

I love spring in Texas. It comes out in full strength with beauty, color, and fragrance—things that aren’t always so common in Texas. We don’t get the fall colors. We certainly don’t get much snow. But a lake of blue decorating the fields of our farm felt like a promise.

I was seven months pregnant with your younger brother Nicolas, and singing wasn’t quite as effortless as it is at times. About halfway through choir practice, I began to feel miserable with gallbladder pain, a common pregnancy complaint. The pressure was building to the point that I felt I needed to go home.

Dad was down near the microphones, and I was in the choir loft, so I lumbered my way down to him.

“I think I’m going to get a ride home,” I told him.

But just as I was preparing to leave, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a message from Hadassah asking me to please come home immediately because Christopher had filled his eyes with dirt.

What in the world?

I asked Aunt Hannah if she could give me a ride, since we’d walked to choir, and we hurried down to the house. She dropped me off at the gate and headed back.

By now it was dark, and the crickets were chirping. I rushed into the house, for the moment forgetting the gallbladder pain, to find you frantically screaming and trying to pull away from your big sister Helen and Hadassah.

I grabbed you, pinned you to myself, and tipped back your chin.

I had never seen anything like it. Your eyes were filled with dirt, as though you had deliberately packed it into them.

I swooped you up onto the counter, and all three of us had to hold you down while I poured water into your eyes, trying to wash the dirt out. I tried to use a gentle tone, but your screams grew louder by the second. The good news was that the dirt was coming out.

The bad news was that one of your kicking legs suddenly thrashed into the dish rack, knocking it sideways on the counter. Several dishes rolled out, including a glass, which hit the tile floor and shattered.

Eighteen-month-old Carri Beth toddled around my skirts, pointing at you and questioning, “He crying? He crying?”

But it was all we could do to manage you. I was soaked with water. Mud was everywhere. Dishes and broken glass covered the floor.

“Keep her out of the glass,” I said to eleven-year-old Blair.

Just then, Carri Beth swooped down and tried to helpfully grab a piece. Too late.

Her screams split the air, piercing through the rest of the ruckus. She had sliced her index finger wide open, nearly taking off the tip.

“Oh God,” I said. “Now what do we do?”

But the dirt was almost out of your eyes.

“Helen, grab a rag and wrap it around her hand and squeeze,” I said, pinching my phone between my ear and shoulder as I called our doctor at the clinic.

“Please bring her right in,” he said.

I told him about your eyes too, and he assured me that if we had washed all the dirt out, you were going to be okay.

By then, you were looking good. Even you seemed to realize that the crisis was ending, and your cries had subsided. Hadassah volunteered to pull your pajamas on and read you a story so I could get Carri Beth to the clinic.

I took Helen with me, and when we arrived, Dr. Mark took Carri Beth. For whatever reason, she wasn’t terribly receptive to the numbing medicine, and so she screamed for every stitch. But Mark was gentle and playful and somehow managed to put everyone at ease.

At last, her hand was stitched and bandaged. I lifted her onto my shoulders, her little legs straddling my very pregnant belly, and patted her head. Her sobs dissipated into whimpers, and finally she fell asleep.

As we walked out the door of the clinic, Mark put a hand on my shoulder and then on Helen’s.

“How’s Mommy and big sister? Are y’all going to be okay?”

“We’ll be just fine,” I said.

But when I looked over at Helen, she looked as though she was about to both cry and vomit.

By the time we came home, you were asleep, and I tucked Carri Beth into bed. The gallbladder attack must have been frightened away by all the commotion, because it had eased to a dull ache as I climbed into a warm bath.

Just another day with a house full of children and being a mom.

We’ve all come a long way, Christopher, not just you. You’ve learned to live in a world that’s rather overwhelming at times—and not just to you!

With all my love,
Mom

Dear Mom,

Thinking of that letter you wrote to me reminded me of times when I could easily sense that something bad was happening, or that something bad was about to happen.

I would often sense it by the expressions on your face. When I saw worry on your face, I would get extremely worried about it myself. I would amplify those fears until they sometimes turned into one of those meltdowns, with me screaming in terror.

Usually, it was because something bad really was happening, but it sometimes wasn’t. I could see it on your face—like, for example, a baby very sick or dying, or even that time when Andrew went over the falls.

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Dearest Christopher,

Today, as we sit underneath the shade of a willow tree writing in our backyard, I’m remembering.

Actually, so many memories are tucked away in the shadows of my brain that it’s sometimes hard to choose which one to tell you about. But I think I’ll choose the one where I first saw you concerned for someone like yourself.

It started when you’d begun to have some breakthroughs, fewer meltdowns, some stilted conversations, and a love for family music.

Paula, a friend of ours, invited us to her little yellow house for dinner.

“I’m hoping you can come,” she told me, “because I’ve also invited a family with an autistic sixteen-year-old boy. He still isn’t talking, and his parents are getting desperate with his behavior and meltdowns.”

It was an interesting dinner.

We gathered around the overcrowded table, and their son, whom I’ll call Robby, began to bounce in his seat and wave his hands and really sort of roar.

You were still young, about nine, so you still had a little boy voice and little boy body. But this boy looked and sounded like a young man, so the behaviors were a bit startling, even frightening.

But you sat in your chair and watched him with an intrigued smile. You didn’t seem alarmed at all!

We tried to talk over the noise but didn’t get very far. At last, our hostess kindly suggested we sit out on the porch, “so the boys can play in the yard.”

We moved out to the rough wood porch, and Robby dropped down onto the ground on all fours and began to howl. His little mother rushed to his side and tried to lift him up, even though he was bigger than she was.

But you came over and dropped down on all fours like him.

“I’m a lion,” you said to him.

And you let out a roar, a bit like he was doing, but more distinctively lion-sounding.

Robby’s mother stepped back, surprised. You grinned at the boy and roared again.

I’d never seen you play like this with another child! But this was what we had done with you, especially a bit earlier in your journey when we’d had no communication. If you crawled, we crawled. If you rolled, we rolled. If you sorted blocks, we did it too. We were always looking for a window into your world, hoping that if we could step into your world, perhaps you could cross the bridge into ours.

So you crawled round and round Robby and roared. Suddenly, he was looking right at you. I hadn’t seen him look at anyone all evening, and he roared back at you!

Then you both crawled in a circle. He was no longer crying or roaring angrily; he was playing with you. His parents leaned over to me and said, “We’ve never seen him play like this!”

Then you stood up. “I’m going to teach you to dance,” you said.

Stretching out your hands, you reached toward him, and he lifted his hands. You joined hands, and he stood up.

Then you began to loudly sing, “Draw up water joyfully from the wells of Yeshua”—Jesus’ Hebrew name. It was an ancient Jewish song. And you and Robby began to twirl around in circles, leaping there on the lawn in the patterned shadows of the live oak trees.

You sang, and he laughed. It was a rusty sound, like his laughter was just escaping from a deep hidden well, but maybe it would turn out to be an artesian well.

Today, all the memories in my heart and mind seem to be springing up joyfully, and I can’t help but pass them along.

I hope you’ll keep on dancing in the sunlight, even when shadows cast patterns on your head.

With all my love,
Mom

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the last letter you’ve written me. It reminded me of one of those times of getting into those tight spaces.

One bright afternoon, when everybody else was doing school, I had not started school yet. I remember taking my light, fluffy comforter off my bed—or sometimes just any other blanket that was soft, fuzzy, or anything that felt comfy to me—and completely wrapping myself up in it like one of those Egyptian mummies.

Then I would crawl underneath my own bed.

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Dearest Christopher,

As I’ve mentioned to you before, prayer was something I worried about in the early years, wondering if you’d ever understand it. And now I completely rejoice in what your prayers have become—an example to all of us.

Today, I’d like to tell you about a story that you may remember…

Dad and I glanced at each other as the prayers continued from the seat behind us. I could just hear them above the rattles and groans of the RV as we lurched and lunged our way up the winding roads of Yellowstone National Park. Snow was melting from a late Father’s Day blizzard the night before.

Christopher, you rocked back and forth, alternating between prayers and talking to yourself.

“Let us see Old Faithful, in Jesus’ name.”

“I’m not going to be upset. I’m not going to be upset.”

“I’m not going to be discouraged, but I am going to see Old Faithful.”

Then you added, “Jesus answers prayers. He does. I know He does!”

And on and on the litany of supplications poured forth.

This detour to Yellowstone had not originally been in our travel plans as we headed northwest to visit family, but Dad had made the mistake—or perhaps not—of bringing an atlas along on the journey, which you began to pore over.

“Dad!” you exclaimed with full enthusiasm, shoving your dark bangs back from your eyes. “Did you realize that Yellowstone is on the way to Montana, where we’re going?”

Really, though, it had all begun quite a bit before that, when you became obsessed with volcanoes and geysers.

You created geysers by dropping candy into soda bottles and made volcanos with baking soda and vinegar. You studied every book we had on volcanoes and geysers. You knew all the details of Pompeii and Mount St. Helens and seemingly every other volcano that existed.

And Old Faithful was a special friend of yours in your head. You knew its patterns. You knew where it was. You knew the pressure and the volume of water coming out.

“We’ve got to go by Yellowstone and see Old Faithful,” you pleaded.

So we decided to change our route.

“Now, Christopher,” Dad told you, “there are many, many geysers in Yellowstone, and we may not get to see Old Faithful, but we’ll definitely see a geyser.”

As a matter of fact, Dad and I had been there a few years before and had been rather unimpressed. After waiting in a mob of people for an hour, Old Faithful had finally gone off, and we found many of the other geysers to be just as impressive, if not more so.

We tried to prepare you for that, but it was Old Faithful that you wanted to see, and so the prayers went on and on.

“What do we do?” I asked Dad.

“See if you can call the visitor center and find out what the Old Faithful schedule is today.”

The problem was that we still needed to set up camp, tents and everything, before dark, as well as eat supper, and Uncle Kevin and Aunt Abby were meeting us for that supper. We didn’t feel like we could afford to wait a long time at Old Faithful. And we were leaving the next morning. We had people to meet.

When I checked the schedule, it looked as though by the time we arrived, Old Faithful would have erupted about forty minutes earlier and wouldn’t be due to erupt again for another half hour.

“We won’t have half an hour,” Dad said. “But we’ll go by there, and if it goes off in ten or fifteen minutes, we’ll see it. Otherwise, you’re going to have to settle yourself and be thankful to see the other geysers.”

We pulled up to Old Faithful, and sure enough, there were crowds of people sitting around waiting. We found our place, and you prayed. Loudly!

“In Jesus’ name, let this geyser go off.”

I looked at the clock. It wasn’t due for another thirty minutes, but we sat there anyway.

We had only been sitting there for about three minutes when suddenly it began to steam, then to bubble. And suddenly, into the gray sky, a geyser of white water shot upward. It grew larger and fuller by the second, reaching approximately forty feet.

And Christopher, you began to leap and dance, to bow and bend and shriek right there in front of all those people.

“I prayed! I prayed! I prayed!” you shouted, as you leapt and twirled.

“And there it is! Old Faithful!”

Dad and I looked at each other, laughing and crying, and the whole crowd began to cheer and applaud. But they weren’t looking at Old Faithful. They were looking at you, dancing there beneath the steam, overwhelmed with joy because Old Faithful had sprung forth from the rocks. And you had prayed.

Keep praying, and I know that Old Faithful will always spring forth, instant in season and out of season.

With all my love,

Mom

Pacing back and forth in the cool shade of the giant, rough-barked, 200-year-old pecan trees in our green front yard, where we lived at the bottom of a hill, I remember repeating, for practice, those words: “Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi,” over and over and over again.

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Dearest Christopher,

I’ve always loved your unfiltered perspectives. Without fail, you have a way of saying aloud what everyone else is actually thinking.

Here’s the story that comes to mind.

The long-melted ice lay flat and flecked in the sweaty glasses like the last undesirable sip. I emptied each one into the porcelain sink, rinsed it, refilled it with ice from the growling, clunking ice maker, and finally filled it, this time, with water. The punch was long gone after so many refills.

I glanced at my watch: 11:30. Five-thirty in the morning was going to come very soon.

But the volume, the storytelling, from the living room was unremitting and undiminished. The flow of verbiage bounded through the house like an untamed mountain creek in springtime.

Christopher, you twirled and leaped behind me around the kitchen, bowing and bending, muttering indecipherable words and grunts under your breath. Suddenly you stopped at my elbow.

“Mom! These people…” you began.

“Sh!” I tried to hush you, but it was already too late as you blasted out your perspective at 900 decibels.

I’d worried about you earlier in the day as we prepared a feast for company. You’d seemed especially antsy, with lots of running, flapping, and bowing.

“Christopher,” I prepared you, “we’re having company tonight. They’ll be coming for dinner, and we’ll be eating quesadilla burgers.”

“Oh, we’re having company,” you repeated to the porch rail behind my shoulder.

“We’re not going to do lots of running while they’re here,” I went on.

“Oh, why can’t Christopher run?” you asked the porch rail.

“Sometimes company doesn’t know why you’re running, so it’s best not to do it the whole time,” I explained, though I was actually more concerned about the conversations you always carried on with yourself while you were running.

I wasn’t overly concerned. The couple had spent many years in Latin America and seemed the easygoing type. They were new friends, eager to get to know our family and church community. Unfortunately, we hadn’t really had a chance to prepare them for your situation, and during that season, that preparation was often needed.

Our family of nine pulled the extra leaf into the table, gathered long-leaf pine chairs and a bench around it, and dug into the quesadilla burgers. Banter passed back and forth as our new friends, Harry and Lisette, filled every lull with hilarious stories from their globe-trotting life—their children, their dog, border crossings, and adventures from years overseas.

Upon their arrival, Lisette greeted each of us with a kiss on both cheeks. Her graying hair was pulled back in a knot, and her eyes seemed to smile all the time. When she reached you, Christopher, you leaped backward, threw your arms behind you, and stared at her with your dark eyebrows raised so high they disappeared beneath your bangs. Smiling, I quietly stepped in front of you to receive my greeting just as she reached over to pinch your younger brother Nicolas’s cheek.

Otherwise, the evening went off without a hitch…

…until it didn’t.

I’d never heard so many stories in one evening! These people were funny! As we wandered down the winding pathways of their memories, we visited the schools their children had attended, their pet poodle back home, their children when they were young, a war they had been caught in…

The clock worked its way around hour after hour, and I began to wonder just how long they intended to stay as it crept closer and closer to midnight.

The sound of Texas cicadas reached through the windows, closed tight against the summer heat. Still the stories rollicked on.

Must be Latin culture, I thought. I’d have thought that at their age they’d be ready for bed.

I’d refilled the glasses six times. The last cookie crumbs had long since disappeared from the platter.

Repeatedly, you sprang from your chair, dashed behind the couch, and ran back and forth a time or two with a quick bow, your lips moving, fortunately without any audible sounds. I knew you were desperate to run. I’d lean forward to catch your eye, shake my head, and you’d reluctantly collapse back into your chair, rocking back and forth instead.

Finally, you followed me into the kitchen as I filled the glasses once again.

“Mom!” you bellowed. “These people are staying way too long! Why are they talking and talking and talking and talking? They are too loud!”

“Christopher!” I gasped.

The chatter in the living room stopped instantly.

“Oh, no.”

I peeked around the doorway.

Every eye in the room was already on me.

Then we all burst into laughter until we wiped tears from our eyes. The tension disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Harry stood, stretched, and grinned at you.

“Well,” he said, “I guess Christopher has spoken.”

Then, pointing toward the door, he laughed again.

“We’re leaving now! It’s the Latin culture coming through, but we like a man who speaks his mind.”

And just like that, they gathered their things, hugged everyone goodbye, forwent the kisses on your cheeks, and disappeared into the warm Texas night.

I smiled at Dad as you dashed into the dark for a little running before bed.

You had simply said what the rest of us had been thinking for the last hour. You were honest enough to say it out loud.

Love,

Mom

Dear Mom,

I remember taking random books out of our big red-brown cedar library shelf parked against one of the deep blue walls of my bedroom. Sorting through the piles of books I had wheelbarrowed from the shelf, I was fishing for books about weather, geology, or even natural disasters from the world’s past or future predictions.

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Dearest Christopher,

In my early years of reading about autism, studying everything I could get my hands on, and interrogating your doctor and speech therapist, I learned a great many things. Dad and I even took a ninety-hour course on the workings of the brain. I came away realizing one thing above all:

It’s a wonder anybody’s brain and body can function normally.

The workings of the brain are a miracle.

Among the many things we learned about were savant skills, or splinter skills, as they are sometimes called in the world of autism. Some autistic children seemed to possess remarkable gifts of math, art, memory or music. We wondered whether we would ever see anything like that in you.

We eventually did. The first hint came from music.

Once, on a road trip, I played a Bach piece I had downloaded, hoping the music would help soothe the long drive for you. It was intricate and beautiful, the kind of piece I simply enjoyed listening to without ever attempting to remember it.

A few minutes later, Daddy and I heard you quietly humming in the back seat. You gazed out the window at the blur of New Mexico landscape, as your voice lilted through movement after movement of the entire piece!

We looked at one another in amazement. Your musical memory was unlike anything the rest of us possessed.

As the years passed, your memory continued to surprise us.

When you were about eleven, I asked all the children to keep journals. As usual, yours turned out rather differently.

You had been fascinated by weather ever since you could talk. Wind, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes—anything powerful completely filled your thoughts and imagination. Instead of writing about your day, you began making an elaborate weather handbook.

I still can picture you sitting at the dining room table, your sketchbook spread open, a handful of crayons rolling around beside your pencil as you bent over yet another page—on weather! The rest of us would pass by from time to time just to see what you were working on next.

Page after page appeared: fresh breezes, gales, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, each one carefully and beautifully illustrated and described.

Finally, curiosity got the better of me, and I pulled several weather books from the shelf and began checking your work.

“Christopher,” I thought, “you’re a little plagiarist!” Except you had never copied anything. Many of your descriptions were nearly word for word, even down to the punctuation, but they came from a variety of books you’d read months, perhaps years, before.

“Honey,” I finally called to Daddy, “I think Christopher may have some sort of photographic memory.”

We never completely solved that mystery. We simply learned to accept it, because the ability seemed to appear in some places but not all.

One spring afternoon, I saw it again. The Godsey’s, your second cousins and my first cousins, came over for one of our family writing workshops. We gathered beneath the cedar trees with the pungent scent of cedar mingling with the rich smell of damp spring earth. A gentle breeze stirred the branches overhead while you and Nicolas carried the big whiteboard out into the yard.

It was poetry day, so I copied a Robert Frost poem onto the board, and together we studied its rhythm and rhyme before trying our hand at writing something similar. We laughed over awkward meters and rather cheesy rhymes until finally I wrote a simpler poem on the board for everyone to imitate.

When your turn to read came, you read a lovely poem that left us all speechless.

“Wow, Christopher,” I said. “Did you really write that yourself?”

You looked at me with a furrow under your shock of dark hair.

“Well… I hope I did it right. But once I read this poem in a book, and it matches that.” You pointed at the poem on the board with your weathered pencil.

“What book?”

You couldn’t remember.

“One of the ones on the bookshelf.”

It followed the pattern perfectly.

“That’s wonderful,” I smiled, “but this time you were supposed to write one out of your own head.”

You threw back your head and laughed.

“I don’t have words like that in my head.”

We all laughed with you, but the reality was that you did. While the words most of us read flutter away like summer moths, somehow those beautiful lines had been engrave into your mysterious memory and waited there until this day when they were needed.

Christopher, though you have fought battles that most of us will never face, God has also entrusted you with gifts that most of us will never possess.

The same God who tucked melodies safely into your memory and preserved the words of poets you scarcely remembered reading also knew why He entrusted those gifts to you.

Cherish them, and use your music to glorify Him. Use your memory to bless His children.

Every gift He gives is meant to become a doorway through which someone else discovers His love.

Love,
Mom

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Dearest Christopher,

I often wondered when you were young, How does a child who has such a hard time coming into relationship with his family, whom he can see, learn to have a relationship with God above, whom he cannot see?

This greatly concerned me, because my relationship with God is what had sustained me through many trials, even those that concerned you.

Fortunately, your dad felt strongly that this was going to happen in God’s own way and in God’s own time, and that we simply needed to trust Him to lead His little lamb. As usual, he was right.

I’d like to tell you a little about your journey.

In previous letters, I’ve told you about your character book and our attempts to communicate moral truths to you, like honesty and dishonesty, kindness and meanness, obedience and disobedience. We did this through abstract art, creating shapes, colors, and scenes that produced either peace or discordant feelings. We memorized Scripture together, but for many years I wondered whether any of it was really meant anything to your little mind.

Then, around the time you were ten, I began finding children’s Bible storybooks scattered around the house. Their pages worn and curled from being turned so many times. You’d sit with one finger tracing the pictures, muttering whispered comments as though you were stepping into the pictures themselves.

One of your favorite books illustrated the book of Acts. You loved Paul’s shipwreck, the snake that bit him without harming him, and so many other stories. You pored over those pages with question after question, bringing the stories alive—not only for yourself, but for the rest of us too.

Every morning you joined our family devotions. We always began by asking, “What is everyone thankful for?” We started with the youngest and worked our way up. Many days we simply skipped over you because you didn’t seem to know what we were talking about.

Then one evening you surprised us by saying, “I’m thankful that Sister Amy had her baby.”

A few eyebrows lifted around the room. I caught your dad’s eye, and then it dawned on me. We had all been praying for Sister Amy to have her baby.

While we prayed, you usually sat quietly with head cocked to the side, watching each face as though trying to understand the invisible conversation taking place around you. Sometimes I prayed specific prayers out loud for you to hear and understand. Other times I simply worshiped God or prayed from my own heart, but I never actually heard you pray.

You did, however, always have prayer requests.

Much of your childhood was overshadowed by my dad’s battle with cancer. After our thanksgivings we’d ask, “Does anyone have a prayer request?”

Nearly every day your voice came before anyone else’s.

“Can we pray for Granddaddy?” Sometimes your requests were wonderfully specific.

“Can we pray that Granddaddy will sleep tonight?”

And the next morning my dad called and said, “I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a month.”

I stood there holding the phone, remembering your request from the evening before and realizing that you seemed to have an intuition about these things sometimes.

The first time I experienced your prayers firsthand came shortly after I had injured my back. It had been debilitating. For weeks I could barely walk, and after countless exercises, visits to the chiropractor, and physical therapy, I was finally beginning to improve. Still, I dreaded the long hours we would soon spend riding in a borrowed RV on a family trip to the Northwest.

That Sunday there had been a powerful move of God in our meeting. The Lord gave us a new faith to pray with confidence.

“Mountain, be removed!”

I listened with faith rising in my heart for all kinds of things, but strangely enough, I never even thought about my own back. Many people received prayer and were touched that day.

After church we hurried home, gathering snacks, shoes, socks, and camping gear into the RV. Before long we were rolling down the highway. The constant chatter of you seven kids became a competition with the rattle of dishes inside the cupboards and the endless creaking of every joint in the RV. Outside the windows, fields slowly gave way to west Texas desert. Everyone buzzed with excitement over the relatives we would visit, the campfires we would build, and the adventures ahead.

Quietly, though, I wondered how my back would hold up. Suddenly I felt your warm breath on the back of my neck as you leaned forward between the seats.

“Mommy, is your back okay?”

“Well, it’s not well,” I answered, “but it’s feeling much better than it was a few weeks ago.”

You looked puzzled.

“Why didn’t you say, ‘Mountain be removed’?”

For a moment I was confused. Then I remembered the message from church only hours before.

“Well… I should have, shouldn’t I?”

Without another word, you reached forward and laid your hands on my back. Then you prayed the first prayer I’d ever heard you pray aloud.

“Mountain be removed. God, heal Mommy’s back. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

I looked over at your dad behind the wheel. Even behind his sunglasses I could see him wiping his eyes, and I swallowed down the tears myself.

At the next gas station, the Texas heat practically withered me as I climbed out of the motorhome. I stood upright without thinking, and stopped. The pain was gone from my back. I was standing straight for the first time in weeks!

When I told you, you weren’t surprised in the least. “Yes,” you said matter-of-factly. “I prayed, ‘Mountain be removed.’”

That evening, after we tucked you into bed, I paced beneath the stars in the campground while talking to my parents on the phone. Through the receiver I could hear them weeping, rejoicing, and thanking God. It would not be the first time, or the last, that God used your prayers.

A few months later Sister Bonnie called me, after she’d been taking you to sing in nursing homes for a few months.

There was a young woman there who was severely physically and mentally handicapped. She had never spoken or smiled. She couldn’t even keep her tongue inside her mouth and didn’t seem to notice people.

Wheelchairs lined the walls of the home, but when you saw her, you simply smiled and said,

“She is very cute.”

You leaned close enough that for her to hear your words and prayed for her. She smiled and tried to speak to you. As you sang Jesus Loves Me and I’ve Got Jesus on My Mind, and she began to sway and wiggle to the music with a great big smile on her face.

Watching you so easily believe, I began to wonder if perhaps children sometimes believe what the rest of us have spent years trying to understand, that God is good and that He does move mountains.

Just last year I saw that same faith again. Daddy was in Egypt, and I was waiting for three babies to be born. During family prayer time I asked, as usual,

“Does anyone have any thanksgivings?”

To my surprise you answered, “I’m thankful that Sister Teresa is going to have her baby on Saturday.” It was an unusual thanksgiving because she hadn’t had the baby yet!

“You think she’s going to have her baby on Saturday?” I asked.

With a sheepish smile you nodded, but didn’t elaborate. “I do.”

Saturday morning Teresa called to say she was in labor. As a midwife, my upcoming births are often part of our family prayers, so praying for her wasn’t unusual, but the timing sure was!

And, of course, she had her baby that Saturday.

May God give us all a childlike faith.

May you never lose yours, and may He continue to work miracles through the willing channel of your life.

With all my love,

Mom

Many of you have faithfully chosen to support my writing, even when you weren’t receiving anything exclusive in return. Your encouragement has meant more to me than you know, and I am deeply grateful.

But that has changed!

I’m excited to share something that no one else has seen yet—a sneak preview of the book that Christopher and I are writing together.

The book is made up of letters exchanged between the two of us. Some are letters I have written to him, and others are his responses back to me. It has become a beautiful journey of reflection, growth, and the grace of God at work through the years.

Today, I’d like to share one of Christopher’s letters in response to one I wrote to him.

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One memory always comes to mind.

How could someone not realize they had arms? I wondered as I watched my son sitting in his high chair. We were visiting Granddad and Grandma Karen, his daddy’s parents. He was almost three years old, and Grandma had served mashed potatoes from the garden with rich homemade gravy. As usual, everyone around the table was enjoying dinner.

He lowered his face into the bowl like a puppy and licked the potatoes. Sometimes his hands wandered into the bowl to help the food along, but just as often his face did all the work. I watched with a knot growing in my stomach. That afternoon another mother quietly pulled me aside in the kitchen.

“You really need to work on his table manners,” she suggested.

She meant well, but we didn’t yet know he had autism. I had raised four children before him and had taught them all to use forks and spoons. I had tried exactly the same things with him, but nothing seemed to work. Her words stung because I already felt like I was failing.

Just a few weeks later came the appointment that changed everything. The doctor looked kindly at me through thick bottle glasses.

“He is autistic,” she said. “Very autistic.”

Drawing a half-circle on a sheet of paper, she pointed. “It’s a spectrum,” she explained, indicating a place near one end. “I’d place him about here.”

Today that would be considered Level 3 autism. At the time, she estimated his cognitive abilities to be around those of a six-month-old. He was three.

The drive home was quiet as he slept peacefully in his car seat. My husband and I talked in low voices about the future—about therapies, possibilities, fears, and hopes. We didn’t know where this road would lead, but we knew we had to start walking it.

Suddenly so many things made sense. He couldn’t seem to color. He couldn’t manage utensils. He didn’t appear to understand what his own hands were for.

So we started working on connections—and then on his hands.

Every meal began the same way. After we prayed, instead of picking up my own fork, I walked around behind his chair. Slipping my arms beneath his, I wrapped his little fingers around his fork, covered his hands with mine, and together we lifted the food to his mouth…again and again and again. Every single meal.

Eventually I began loosening my grip, sliding my hands farther down his wrists until his fingers carried more of the work. One day I decided to wait. We finished praying, and everyone reached for their forks, but I stayed in my chair and watched him expectantly.

He frowned and squirmed. Then came the familiar warning.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

Those words almost always meant a meltdown was on the way. He lifted both hands into the air and waited with them suspended above his plate. My heart felt like dry ground waiting for rain, about to crack.

After a few moments, I walked around the table again, placed my hands over his, and together we ate. It wasn’t the victory I had hoped for, but it was still progress. Because now, as long as my hands rested lightly on his wrists, he would hold his own fork. So the next day I moved my hands to his elbows, and then to his forearms. Sometimes I let go for only a second before taking hold again.

Little by little, his hands were learning.

One meal, after the blessing, I remained seated once more. Steam rose from fresh green beans, and crusty bread lay freshly sliced on a homemade cutting board. He looked at me expectantly but quickly averted his eyes. Then he fussed, and his hands floated uncertainly over the table.

Then…he picked up his fork, speared a piece of chicken, and lifted it to his own mouth.

For a split second the whole table froze. Should we cheer? Would we scare him? But somebody couldn’t help it.

“Christopher!” We shouted.

The dining room erupted with applause. He glanced around in surprise and burst into laughter. Delighted, he dropped his fork on purpose, picked it back up, and fed himself again, hoping to keep producing the laughter. He loved making everyone laugh.

To discover your hands is no small thing. It’s certainly cause for celebration. But…if his hands could learn to feed him, perhaps someday they would learn to write and draw. Perhaps someday they would build or play music. Maybe even someday his mouth would find words too?

So we just kept practicing. Coloring came next. He didn’t understand crayons any better than forks, so again, he held his hands out for mine.

I bought a large whiteboard and dry-erase markers. Standing behind him, I wrapped my hands around his, and together we drew circles, squares, arrows, smiley faces, and simple lines every day. He loved it.

Truthfully, I think he loved the smell of the markers at least as much as drawing. He would lean close and sniff them with obvious delight, and he always seemed comforted by the firm pressure of my hands around his wrists. Deep pressure always settled his little nervous system.

Eventually preschool time would end each morning, and I needed to teach his older brothers and sister. One day, I sat working through grammar with Andrew while Christopher played quietly on the hardwood floor beside me. His favorite toys were blocks, so I dumped a pile for him to play in. He could sort and stack them for what seemed like hours.

As Andrew and I worked through his lesson, I glanced down, and there beside Christopher lay one of the small whiteboards his older siblings used for spelling. A dry-erase marker was clutched in his pudgy hand.

And on the board…was a tractor! A real tractor!

I stared at it. He had never drawn a single thing by himself! He hadn’t even made a single mark on a board without my hands guiding his. Grabbing my phone, I snapped a picture before it disappeared and sent it to my husband at work.

“Our son just did this!” I shrieked into the phone.

Original drawing from Christopher

Hardly believing what I was seeing, I wondered, how in the world had he gone from holding out his hands so I could help him draw a single line…to drawing an entire tractor? He looked up at me proudly.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

For so long that phrase had been nothing but the warning that a meltdown was coming, but that day, I felt that it meant something else. I truly believed he had seen something, imagined it, and had actually drawn it. And finally he had found those familiar words to share it.

Little by little, he was finding his hands. He was finding his feet. And hidden inside the mystery of his mind, the gifts God had placed there all along were beginning to emerge.

We’re still seeing that today.

Many of you have faithfully chosen to support my writing, even when you weren’t receiving anything exclusive in return. Your encouragement has meant more to me than you know, and I am deeply grateful.

That is about to change.

I’m excited to begin sharing something that no one else has seen yet—a sneak preview of the book that Christopher and I are writing together.

The book is made up of letters exchanged between the two of us. Some are letters I have written to him, and others are his responses back to me. It has become a beautiful journey of reflection, growth, and the grace of God at work through the years.

Today, I’d like to share one of Christopher’s letters in response to one I wrote to him.

I hope you enjoy it, and thank you again for your continued support. It has helped make projects like this possible.

—Amanda

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The phone rang, and I looked at the number, surprised. It was a single guy whom I’ll call Bill. I couldn’t remember a time he’d ever called me before.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, Amanda. I just thought I would let you know that, well, you might want to know that your son is standing on the windowsill in his room, and he doesn’t have anything on. Like, nothing on. And he’s looking out the window.”

I groaned.

“Okay. Thank you very much,” I said, shaking my head.

Dashing back to Christopher’s room, I opened the door. Sure enough, he was standing on the windowsill again, but then the smell hit me like a tsunami.

What in the world?

This would not be the first time his room had smelled like this. Our toilet-training journey was not going well. Then I saw the window, the walls, and the shoes in the corner. All of them had been smeared and painted with unspeakable substances.

I grabbed my head in my hands.

“Oh no, Christopher. What did you do?” I asked.

He jerked and jumped off the windowsill where he had been standing.

“Come with Mommy,” I said.

I took him to my bathroom and turned on the water. I felt like taking him outside and spraying him off with a hose, but I knew that would cause even more alarm. After rinsing him off in the shower and settling him into a bath, I went back to clean and sterilize the room.

How were we ever going to overcome the toilet-training issues? We’d been at it for years! And not just the toilet-training issues, but the hatred-of-clothing issues as well.

I had tried softer clothes and cut every tag out of T-shirts, pants, and underwear. But there was always some problem. The second Christopher was out of sight, off came the clothes.

During nap times and while he was outside playing, we lost more shoes than I could count. Somehow they simply disappeared, but I reminded myself that this was a journey.

At least it seemed like we already had some victories behind us, like wetting. Now if we could just get victory with the big jobs and clothing.

Learning to use the potty had included sitting for entire days with him, reading books while he sat on the potty, or sitting beside him next to the adult toilet waiting and watching for success. As strange as it sounds, that turned out to be marvelously helpful because he loved watching water coming from any source. Watching it hit the water in the toilet was even more exciting.

Suddenly, we had a breakthrough, and I wished I’d known that trick before spending endless days and weeks sitting beside the little frog potty that a typical child would have learned on.

After Christopher got out of the tub that day, I brought him back into his room and showed him the pile of dirty rags, clothes, and ruined shoes.

I talked to him as if he could understand every word.

“Christopher, we never do this. That’s very dirty. It can make people sick.”

On and on I went.

I didn’t know if a hundred percent of my words were being understood, or three percent, or zero, but I kept talking. I showed him and let him smell the mess. I explained until I saw something registering in his big brown eyes.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that? Oh, you don’t want to do that?” he repeated in a high-pitched voice, nervously shaking his hands like wings.

Walking the fine line between disturbing him enough not to repeat the behavior and pushing him into a meltdown was always a balancing act.

“That’s right,” I said. “We’re not going to do that anymore.”

And amazingly, we didn’t.

That problem finally disappeared.

Now, the getting-naked issue was another story. At my daughter Helen’s sixteenth birthday party, she had several friends over to celebrate. The house was full of girlish laughter and chatter. Candles had been blown out, presents opened, and Helen was enjoying her special day.

Meanwhile, I had been working diligently on privacy lessons.

“We get dressed in private,” I explained again and again. “No one should see you getting undressed except a doctor or if Mommy is helping you.”

We practiced shutting the door and putting clothes on privately.

Then suddenly, in the midst of the party, Helen squealed.

“Mom!”

I turned around to see a very naked Christopher standing right in the middle of the room full of teenage girls.

“Christopher! What’s the problem?” I asked, rushing over to usher him out of the room.

“Nicolas invaded my privacy,” he announced indignantly, referring to his two-year-old brother, and using terms he’d heard me use in my explanations.

“I was getting dressed, and he opened the door.”

Well, at least part of the lesson had worked.

“Okay,” I said, trying not to laugh. “But let’s not come out here.”

I herded him back toward the bedroom while poor Helen turned bright red all the way to the roots of her hair.

“I’m sorry,” I told the girls. “Just think Adam and Eve. He doesn’t understand.”

The toilet training eventually became a success, and sometime later we were taking a family trip through the mountains of Utah.

We packed our lunch into backpacks and headed down a trail toward a beautiful river. After hiking for about half an hour, we found the perfect picnic spot.

The pine trees swayed in the wind. The scent of the forest drifted through the air, and the river rushed over the rocks beside us.

Carri Beth gathered pinecones in her skirt. Blair skipped rocks, and everyone settled in for a wonderful picnic.

Then suddenly Christopher began to dance.

“Do you need to go potty? Do you need to go potty?” he cried.

Which meant, of course, that he needed to go potty.

What followed was a complete disaster, or so I thought.

I took Christopher off to a private spot and carefully explained that there weren’t any potties in the wilderness, but that we could make do.

The moment I reached for the buckle on his bib overalls, however, he looked at me as though I had violated one of the Ten Commandments.

He dashed around the other side of the tree with a scream. I followed, but he darted around the opposite side, smearing sap on his clothes in the process. The cries escalated into shrieks. Soon we were headed straight into a full-blown meltdown.

Dan came over.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t think I’m going to get him to do this.”

“Well, what do we do?”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to take him all the way back.”

“Oh boy,” Dan said. “That’s a long walk.”

As the meltdown intensified, Dan scooped him up and began jogging back down the trail toward the trailhead where there was a porta-potty.

“He acted like you were murdering him,” Blair observed.

“He doesn’t understand the difference between a small deviation from normal and a terrible crime,” I said.

We laid out the turkey sandwiches, opened the chips, and sat down beside the beautiful mountain river, but our hearts were heavy.

“When’s Daddy getting back?” Zach asked.

“Hopefully soon,” I said.

We were packing up lunch with Christopher’s plate still sitting untouched on the picnic table when we finally saw them.

Dan walked up with a grin on his face. Then he sat down and patted the seat beside him. Christopher climbed onto the bench, picked up his sandwich, and took a huge bite.

Now that was a victory all by itself.

There had been a time when even eating away from home could cause a meltdown. New places, new routines, unfamiliar surroundings—any one of them could derail an entire day. Yet here he was, calmly eating lunch beside a mountain river as if nothing unusual had happened.

Then he looked around at all of us.

“Christopher was a big boy,” he announced proudly.

We smiled.

“He went potty.”

The family erupted into cheers. To anyone else, it might have sounded ridiculous. A family celebrating a trip to the bathroom, but to us it felt like standing on the summit of a mountain.

We knew how many tears stood behind those words. How many hours spent sitting beside little plastic potties. How many ruined pairs of shoes and loads of laundry. How many public embarrassments. How many moments of wondering whether he understood anything we were trying to teach him, and somehow, little by little, the lessons were taking root.

Raising Christopher taught our family to celebrate things we might never have noticed otherwise. A successful trip to the potty. Keeping clothes on all day. Respecting privacy. Eating a meal away from home.

To most people these would seem ordinary. To us they were hard-won triumphs.

There were many times when I wondered whether my words were reaching him at all. I wondered whether the constant explanations, the patient repetition, and the endless practice were accomplishing anything, but over and over again, Christopher surprised me.

Sometimes the victories came months after I expected them or arrived in forms I never anticipated. Sometimes what looked like a defeat in one area turned out to be a step forward in another.

That day in the Utah mountains seemed at first like another failure. We had interrupted the hike, disrupted the picnic, and sent poor Dan jogging down the trail with a screaming child in his arms. Yet by the end of the day, all any of us remembered was Christopher’s proud announcement.

“He went potty.”

We often measure progress by the battles we lose. God measures it by the ground we gain, and most of the ground is gained one small victory at a time.

Those small victories accumulated over months and years until one day we realized we have been utterly transformed into something much better than before.

The victories have become a life.

“Mom, have you seen the bathroom?” fourteen-year-old Helen said in a pleading voice.

I glanced up from grading school papers. “No. Why?” I asked.

She pushed a sandy wisp of hair behind her ear and let out a long-suffering sigh. “You really have to see it to understand. I just finished cleaning it fifteen minutes ago.”

I set aside my paperwork and followed her down the hallway.

There on the bathroom floor sat five-year-old Christopher. He had brought multiple bowls from the kitchen, plus Tupperware containers, shampoo bottles, hairspray lids, cups, pitchers—every kind of vessel he could think of. Fully absorbed, he never even noticed Helen and me standing in the doorway as he poured water from cup to bowl, bowl to pitcher, pitcher to bottle. Back and forth the water moved.

There was water all over the floor.

He was soaked from head to toe, and soap suds floated through puddles carrying the mingled scents of shampoo and bubble bath.

“Oh my,” I said once again.

This was becoming a daily occurrence. I had lost count of how many school papers, drawings, and books had been baptized in Christopher’s rituals.

“I just cleaned the whole bathroom and mopped the floor, and now this,” Helen said, staring at the disaster with pained hazel eyes.

It wasn’t just the water, either. His muddy sandals had tracked brown footprints everywhere because every time he went outside, the hose came on too. Water had become a constant battle.

“Help Mommy pour them all into here,” I said, pulling a pitcher into the mix.

Together we emptied each vessel, stacked them in the sink, and dropped towels across the floor to soak up the mess.

We were in the thick of it then.

Though Christopher had a few words and some sign language, the meltdowns were still overwhelming and mysterious. A few days earlier I had been on the phone when I heard screams erupt from the kitchen.

I rushed in to find Christopher face down on the floor, his fingers jammed into his ears as he beat his head against the tile.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The children stood huddled around silently, and Annie, our friend who was helping us, looked helpless. “I don’t know,” she said. “He seemed like he wanted a piece of cake, and when I gave it to him, he started screaming.”

I looked at the slice of cake sitting untouched on his plate. It seemed perfectly fine, so I offered it to him again.

Christopher lifted his red, tear-streaked face, glanced at the cake, and began screaming harder.

I carried him to the dining room and sat him on the bench. We tried everything—a different dessert, someone else’s cake, another fork—but nothing helped.

Then seven-year-old Zach spoke quietly from the corner.

“Do you think it’s because it’s lying on its side?”

I stopped and looked around the table.

Every other slice of cake stood upright with the frosting on top. Christopher’s had tipped onto its side.

I gently turned the cake upright.

Christopher immediately picked up his fork and began to eat.

We all stared at each other in astonishment.

There seemed to be no gauge for what would become a crisis and what would not.

I was beginning to learn the warning signs of an incoming meltdown, but if I missed the clues, things escalated quickly.

One phrase had become especially familiar.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

Over and over he would repeat it.

“Do you hear that tractor? Do you hear that tractor?”

There was never actually a tractor.

But Christopher was terrified of tractors, and I slowly realized the phrase really meant: I’m afraid.

So whenever he started saying it, I tried desperately to redirect him before panic overtook him completely.

Standing there in the flooded bathroom that afternoon, watching him move water endlessly from one vessel to another, an idea suddenly came to me.

If water soothed him so deeply, perhaps I could use it to help him.

It didn’t take long to test the theory.

A few evenings later I was cooking dinner when I heard it from the other room.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

Then again, half an octave higher.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

I shut off the burner and hurried toward him.

“Come with Mommy,” I said, grabbing his hand.

I pulled him into the kitchen and handed him a cup.

“Let’s fill the cups with water for dinner.”

Together we hurried to the refrigerator dispenser and filled the cup. Then we rushed it to the table and placed it beside Daddy’s plate.

“Now a green cup for Kippy.”

We grabbed another cup.

“Now red for Zach.”

Back and forth we ran, filling cups for every place at the table.

Christopher became increasingly focused, moving faster and faster with purpose and excitement.

But the moment we stopped, the anxious refrain returned.

“Do you hear that tractor?”

I paused, thinking hard.

Then suddenly inspiration struck again.

I hurried out onto the porch and grabbed the dog bowl.

“Give the dog water,” I said, placing it in his hands.

We ran to the spigot, and Christopher shoved the bowl beneath the stream of water.

We carried it carefully back to the porch.

“Do you hear that tractor?” he said again, but quieter this time.

A warm wind stirred across the yard, leaves skittering through the grass.

I grabbed his hand again.

“Come on.”

We hurried to the chicken coop.

The black rubber trough inside was running low. Christopher peered through the wire fencing while I handed him the hose.

“Put it in the bucket,” I instructed.

He fed the hose through the fence while I turned on the spigot.

The hose jerked ans leaped up like a snake, spraying water everywhere. Christopher shrieked with laughter as the trough slowly filled and overflowed.

The chickens came running and clucking noisily toward the water like prancing ladies.

Christopher laughed again and imitated them.

When I finally shut the water off, he stayed standing there, mesmerized by the chickens.

And for the first time all evening, I no longer heard:

“Do you hear that tractor?”

I had discovered something. The next day we did it again.

Some days became fill the cups, water the plants, water the chickens, water the ducks, water the dogs, water the garden days.

Other days it was simply filling cups at the table. But slowly, little by little, we were getting somewhere.

Then one evening, as I coded and the peppery smell of enchilada sauce filled the kitchen, Helen washed dishes beside me. I heard the familiar words drifting from the next room.

“Do you hear that tractor? Do you hear that tractor?”

“There’s no tractor,” ten-year-old Andrew answered patiently.

I sighed inwardly. Dinner was running behind, and I knew watering everything might take the next hour.

I reached to turn off the burner. But before I could move, Christopher walked into the kitchen.

Watching him, I held my breath. He went to the dish rack, picked up a cup, and filled it carefully with water. Then another, and another. One by one he carried them to the table, setting them beside each person’s plate.

I felt a sudden sting behind my eyes. He was serving the family, and all because of water.

Water soothed him, and somehow, by learning the language of what calmed him instead of fighting against it, we had found a way to help him belong.

Nine-year-old Christopher frantically tugged at my skirt, clutching my hand, he shouted for the entire Walmart store to hear,
“Did I lie? Did I lie? Mommy, did I lie? I didn’t lie, Mommy, did I? Are you mad, Mommy?”

“You did not lie,” I said, leaning close to his ear and whispering. “I’m not mad, but we’ll talk about it later, in the car.”

“Why later? Why later? Did I lie? Was I bad?”

“You did not lie. We’ll talk about it in the car.”

“Are we going to the car? Will we talk about it in the car?”

His voice was high-pitched, and everyone was watching. How had I gotten myself in this predicament?

Well, it had all started from good intentions, but good intentions, I’d discover, can take some twists and turns, especially when they are connected to an autistic child.

In my journey with my son Christopher, I have read scores of books, watched documentaries, consulted with speech therapists and neuroscientists, and my mother’s heart was determined to give him the best chance—a chance to belong, a chance to succeed, and most of all, to communicate, to love, and to be loved.

At that time, there was a lot of controversy around whether an autistic person could empathize or even feel emotions, feel love, but I knew my son could. I had seen the tears roll down his cheeks while listening to a beautiful song. But there were other times when it didn’t seem like he could. He laughed at the wrong moments. When his little brother got a splinter in his finger and was screaming, he laughed. But in still other situations, he’d nearly gotten himself killed trying to save a toddler from running into the road.

The emotions were there. The heart was certainly there. It was all just a little scrambled together and chaotic.

So I ordered a stack of emotion cards, and each day we sat on the bed in my room and looked at them.

“This boy is bored,” I said, holding up a picture of a boy sprawled on the couch, arm over his head, eyes drooping. “This little girl is afraid”—high pigtails, wide eyes, tightened cheeks.

We’d look at a card, and then Christopher stood at the mirror and make the same face. I’d heard that when you actually make a face, you can feel that emotion. If you smile, you’ll be happier. As a matter of fact, I’d read a study that demonstrated how movie stars claimed that their lives deteriorated and their relationships became rocky when they played the role of an angry or miserable character—and improved when they played the role of a joyful one.

I believed that making these gestures and expressions would help Christopher to empathize, so it became a daily routine.

We took turns. I’d make the face. “Now what do you say to me when I’m making this face?”

“Are you okay?” he would imitate; his eyebrows high as he watched to see if he got it right.

Then later, around the dinner table… Steam rose from the mashed potatoes, as we all ate, and suddenly Christopher leapt up and rushed into the kitchen.

“Oh, he’s so sad,” we heard him say in his own voice—and then, in my voice, “Are you okay, Christopher?”

We knew what he was doing. He was standing in front of the stainless steel Berkey water filter, looking at his reflection and practicing the emotions.

Was it working? I wasn’t really sure, but I felt we were making progress. He was tuning in.

When I scolded our toddler, Nicolas during family devotion time and his lip popped out and he began to cry, Christopher reached over and grabbed my arm.

“Is he okay?” he said, and there was genuine concern on his face. I was excited.

The next step was dealing with moral issues.

Christopher was a little thief when it came to treats. He loved sweets. Our canister of chocolate chips was regularly mysteriously empty, and I had run out of ideas for how to hide it. I tucked it behind a jar of oats. I even put it in the pan cupboard, but somehow he always found the chocolate chips, and would even scoop sugar straight from the bin.

The crazy thing was, none of us ever saw him doing it. If we were in the room, he was good—but if we were not, he didn’t seem to be stricken by his conscience at all.

So that became my next project. I wanted him to have a sense in his heart of right and wrong.

I began to read a book by Molly Bang on design—how abstract art was meant to create feelings and emotions. Certain colors came together to give peace, joy, and harmony—colors like blue, yellow and gold. Horizontal lines, soft rounded edges—these brought peace. But diagonals, black, purple, red—created tension and chaos. Heart rates went up. Breathing quickened. I had an idea.

I began to put together a scrapbook with Christopher.

“What does it mean to tell a lie?” I asked him. “What is a lie?”

“It’s a snake,” he said. My brain did a bounce. A snake, I thought. Something in it actually rang true in my heart.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” I said, thinking—the snake did have a forked tongue. And the first lie was told by a snake. God had ulterior motives, and we could be as gods. So we built a picture.

The smell of Elmer’s glue wafted up as Christopher and I cut out shapes—black, red, purple. The colors didn’t go together. The shapes were tense. A triangular snake head peeking out behind a falling-down forest. A forked tongue. Black trees. Purple background. A red snake. It gave me the creeps.

“This is a lie,” I said.

Then I gave him examples. “If you eat sugar and Mommy comes and asks you, ‘Did you eat sugar?’ and you say, ‘No,’ that’s a lie.”

“Now here’s the truth,” I said.

We made another picture. A beautiful cream-colored pathway under a golden sun in a blue sky. Two figures walking side by side.

“When you tell the truth, you’re in the light. The sun is shining. Jesus is with you.”

We memorized scriptures to go with each trait—honesty, lying, obedience, disobedience.

I asked him, “What does it mean to disobey?” He instantly quoted a scripture, and my mouth dropped open.

“Whoever hears these words of mine and obeys them is like a wise man that builds his house on the rock…” he said.

So we cut out a picture of a house on a rock. The colors were peaceful. Then we cut out another picture of a house on sand, and a tornado was tearing it up. The colors were chaotic and the shapes disorganized. But Christopher was getting it!

The amazing thing was, he could now look at people’s faces and tell me, “He’s telling a lie”—even about his own sibling, and he was right. We had a truth detector right in our own home.

I could feel hope rising like our river after a storm. Christopher was going to be a man of character someday. And Christopher always told the truth. He could also quote scriptures to stand behind those truths.

But it had some drawbacks.

It happened on a Monday. Normally the kids visited Grandma on Mondays, and I took that opportunity to run errands and clean house. But on this particular Monday, Grandma wasn’t available, so I decided to take Christopher with me to the store. After all, it was good for him to get exposure to stores periodically. We already had his service dog, so we were a bit of a spectacle anyway, but this would be good for the dog, too. Right…?

All seemed to be going well. People admired his dog. He was behaving nicely—until we came to the checkout line.

In front of us was a young man in a wheelchair. I wasn’t overly concerned. Christopher had a beautiful sympathy toward people with handicaps. But this young man—I don’t know why he was in a wheelchair, but his body was at least three times as wide as the wheelchair, spilling out over the tires and overlapping the armrests. He had definitely outgrown the wheelchair a long time prior.

Christopher suddenly said at the top of his lungs, “That is a very fat man!”

“Christopher,” I exclaimed in a loud whisper, “shh!”

“Why are you shushing me?” he said. “Did I lie?”

I didn’t want to say, “No, you didn’t lie,” in front of the man, so I just said, “Don’t say that.”

“Shouldn’t I speak the truth? Don’t I tell the truth?” he shouted back.

I whispered in his ear, “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Why do we talk about it later?”

And on and on he questioned me, becoming more and more frantic until he was leaping up and down beside his dog. The dog circled him, whining, then pushed his head against him to try to calm him down.

I hastily heaped items onto the conveyor belt and then shoved them into bags behind the cashier.

For once, I was very glad to have the dog and hoped everyone would consider his handicap enormously debilitating.

At last, we managed to get out the door. A mist was falling. We rushed to the car—the whole way, Christopher tugged at my arm.

“Did I lie? Did I lie, Mommy?”

At last, we settled into the car. I buckled him in, climbed into the front seat, and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel.

“Oh, my Lord,” I breathed.

Christopher bounced franticly in his seat, his voice high-pitched. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Did I lie?”

“You did not lie,” I said.

“I told the truth. I was a good boy.”

Now how do I explain that?

And then my shoulders began to shake.

I laughed and laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks. Before long, Christopher was watching me in the rearview mirror—laughing along with me. So what kind of page do I make for this—chaotic colors or peaceful colors?

A trip to New York in the fall, during the height of color, was meant to be a family vacation, woven together with visits to relatives and friends along the way. By then, I knew that five-year-old Christopher (Kippy) had autism. What I didn’t yet understand was how deeply it would touch every part of what we did.

He had learned a phrase that clearly held some sort of meaning for him, though we didn’t yet know how much, because it was classic echolalia.

“What are we going to do?” he repeated in a lilting voice.

He sat behind me strapped in his booster seat, in the RV we’d borrowed for the trip. The hum of the engine steady beneath us, his small sneakers tapping lightly against the seat as he repeated it again and again.

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

“We’re going on a trip to see Grammy,” I answered.

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to New York. We’re going to see Grammy.”

“What are we going to do?”

With each repetition, his voice grew louder and more urgent, threaded now with something rising toward panic.

“Why does he keep saying that?” Zack asked, his forehead resting against the cool glass as the Tennessee hills rolled by in long, green waves.

“What are we going to do?” came again from Kippy’s seat, like a needle stuck in a groove.

Twelve-year-old Blair decided the solution was to tell him everything.

“We’re going down this road. The wheels of the car are turning. We’ll stop at a light. Then we’ll go into a restaurant…”

But interestingly, Christopher seemed to listen; his gaze was fixed somewhere above Blair’s dark feathery bangs, his head tilted, brow furrowed.

“He almost seems to understand,” I said to Dan.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he does,” Dan replied. “Maybe we should tell him more.” And so we began to try to explain, narrating everything, every transition, each step.

“We’re going to stop at the hotel. Daddy will go in first. Then we’ll carry the suitcases. Then we’ll go into the room…” And almost imperceptibly, things began to smooth, but the trip wasn’t over.

I felt distressed by his manners. I didn’t know how people would interpret what they saw. We avoided restaurants, choosing instead to make sandwiches and eat in parks, the fall grass fading from summer green, but still warm from the sun. But actually, the picnics were something of a gift. Still, meals were difficult. The moment I set a dish in front of Kippy, down went his head, eating straight from the plate. At best, he would grab with his hands and shove the food into his mouth, mustard painting his palms and arms. I’d sit beside him, guiding his hands, helping him hold a spoon, one bite at a time. But the moment I turned away, the old pattern returned. No explanations or demonstrations seemed to reach him.

When we at last arrived in upstate New York, it was apple season. The air itself was scented, cool and damp, with the faint sweetness of fallen fruit. Orange maple leaves skittered across the gravel driveway, fluttering along the ground as we climbed out of the motorhome.

Christopher ran wildly around the vehicle, his footsteps crunching over leaves and small stones. He bowed and bent in a crazy dance all his own, muttering grunts to himself.

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” he again chanted.

We had borrowed the motorhome intentionally, so Dan and I would stay there with Christopher and the baby, while the other children slept in Grammy’s house. I knew meltdowns would be forthcoming, and the motorhome felt like a small, contained refuge.

It worked out well, and we were able, for the most part, to shelter his struggles from the relatives. We spoke plainly about his autism and the road we were on. Everyone responded with support and kindness.

Our next stop was Connecticut. A small group of families had gathered, interested in community life. They had invited us to come and share, drawn by what we had experienced growing up in community at Homestead Heritage. I was both excited… and uneasy.

By then, I had been teaching child-training classes for a few years. If I am honest, perhaps I’d taken some pride in the success we had seen with our first four children. But then came Christopher. We didn’t introduce ourselves by explaining his autism; that seemed awkward. We simply let thing unfold.

The group had prepared an evening for us, supper in the backyard, a fire crackling low, with thin ribbons of smoke rising. The air had an early-autumn bite that stiffened my fingers and numbed my ears. There was to be singing and worship, so Dan brought his guitar. Helen was to play the piano. At first, all went well with lots of introductions and small talk.

Christopher tugged at my skirt, the fabric twisting in his grip.

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” I bent low and whispered each step ahead to him.

The children were seated at a long picnic table, and the adults sat at a nearby separate table. I probably should have had Christopher sit with me, but I asked Helen, at fourteen, to stay close to him.

Hot dogs were served, on glass plates for the adults, paper plates for the children. Someone placed a glass plate in front of Christopher… he flapped his hand in excitement. He was hungry, since dinner had been so delayed. But, the young woman, realizing her mistake, took the glass plate away to replace it with paper.

I saw it happen out of the corner of my eye, and my heart dropped. He was already tired, already hungry. This wasn’t going to go well. He wouldn’t understand. Suddenly, he pitched backwards, rolled off the bench and onto the ground, screaming, writhing in the damp leaves and black soil, now clinging to his clothes and hands. The whole gathering fell silent, as I abruptly left my conversation and rushed to him.

“Kippy, they’re bringing you another plate,” I whispered close to his ear. “They’re bringing you another plate.”

But the screams only grew louder, echoing against the stillness of the yard. He clamped his hands over his ears.

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” he cried, until his hoarse words dissolved into breathless sobbing.

I couldn’t calm him, so handing the baby to Helen, I tried to de-escalate things, only to trigger a meltdown from another direction…my baby’s feeding was interrupted when I suddenly pulled him from under the nursing cape.

Christoper was large for five years old, but lifted him anyway—his body rigid, hot with distress, covered in dirt, now soaked in urine—and carried him to the motorhome. The cool night air echoed with his screams. There, I spent the rest of the evening trying to soothe him.

Helen, always conscientious, came quietly, opening and closing the door in intervals, letting in the distant murmur of voices, to ask if we needed food or for her to take over. I fed Christopher a hot dog, one bite at a time, between his shuddering sobs.

Eventually, he fell asleep in my arms, his breathing finally softening, his weight heavy and exhausted against me.

Finally, I laid him down on the couch and sat there a moment in the quiet. By now, the evening was nearly over, and I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I didn’t know how to explain. So I didn’t. Finally, trading places with Helen, I simply stepped back outside for the last moments of fellowship. And tried to act as if it hadn’t happened.

That night, lying beside Dan in the motorhome, the narrow space dark and still, I cried.

“We’ve been a disgrace,” I said. “Everything we stand for… people are going to misunderstand. Maybe we shouldn’t have come. Maybe someone else should have…”

Dan reached over and patted my hand.

“I don’t think they feel that way,” he said gently. “I think it’s obvious he has needs.”

“But what do I do?” I said. “What are we going to do?” Even as I said it, I heard the echo.

What are we going to do?

“God is going to help us,” Dan said. “Step by step. The victories will mean more because of the battles. We have to trust that people will understand what we can’t explain.”

Then he added,

“And you’re going to have to let go of that image… of being the perfect mother.”

I knew he was right, but the path forward felt hidden behind a fog of uncertainty. If only I could have seen a few years ahead. If I could have known that these very people would one day be woven into our lives. And it wouldn’t be our perfection that spoke, but our weakness.

It could never be us speaking only transmitting His voice through the victories God gave, His strength made perfect in our weakness.

Sitting at my desk by the window, I worked my way through a stack of school papers, red pen in hand. The low hum of the window unit filled the room, steady and almost mesmerizing, and the cool air lifted the loose strands of hair from my face. Then it clicked off, and in the quiet, I heard him. His pounding feet so rhythmic and familiar.

I lifted my eyes just above the edge of the unit and saw him there in the yard—my now, nine-year-old son, Kippy. His feathery dark hair lifted slightly in the breeze as he paced and danced his well-worn path. Three long strides forward, then take a bow, his body folding deeply, hands flapping like butterflies behind him. Then he’d turn, three strides back. Again. And again. And again.

There was a cadence to it, a pattern I knew so well that I could hear it even in my sleep.

The crunch of tires alerted me to a car passing slowly along the road beyond the cedar rail fence that edged our yard. It paused, and the window rolled down.

“Hi, Kippy!” Bonnie called, leaning out with a cheerful wave. Her eyes crinkled in a smile behind thick glasses. I held still at my desk, waiting. There was always that pause, but four years ago, there would have been nothing, no words or response.

But we had been working toward this, patiently and faithfully, one small step at a time.

It had started under our fig tree. That tree stood at the corner of our yard, right where the dusty river road met Dry Creek Road before bending up the hill. Its wide, glove-shaped leaves cast a thick shade, and Kippy claimed that place as his post—his safe observatory of the world. From there, he watched life bustle by. Neighbors headed to milk chores, and families walking toward the river for a picnic. He watched the children running, voices bright in the distance. He peered at the milk cows ambling by for milking time. He gazed out on our geese as the strutted among the orchard trees.

But if anyone turned toward him, he would retreat back under the leaves and into the shadows, the low-hanging branches providing a protective screen.

“Hi, Kippy!” they called as they passed, but he never answered. And still, everyone loved him. Everywhere I went, someone would stop me.

“How’s Kippy doing?”

“How’s he coming along?”

“Is he talking yet?”

He had captured the hearts of the whole community without ever saying a word. We began to work on that road to his heart becoming more than a one way street.

“When someone says hi,” I told him gently, “you say hi back.” So we practiced.

“Hi, Kippy,” I would say, waving.

He would study my hand, puzzled, then echo carefully:

“Hi, Kippy.” It was a beginning.

“I say, ‘Hi, Kippy,’” I tried again. “You say, ‘Hi, Mommy.’”

It took months, but even once he got that, when his dad waved, he then said, “Hi, Mommy.”

When his brother waved, “Hi, Kippy.” All the names floated around, unanchored. Still, we were moving forward. Day after day, we practiced.

In the garden, as I weeded onions, I’d prompt him softly as neighbors passed while he stood under his fig tree,

“Hi, Connie!”

And then urge him, gently, “Say, ‘Hi, Connie.’” His hand would lift. His voice would follow.

“Hi, Connie.”

We practiced with siblings.

“Hi, Kippy,” Zach would say, and together we would answer, “Hi, Zach.”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pieces began to come together. Then one day, before Bonnie even saw him, he stepped out from under the fig tree, into the Texas sunshine and called:

“Hi, Bonnie!” And I knew something had clicked.

Now, three years later, I sat at my desk, waiting for his response. Outside, Bonnie’s hand still lingered in the air from the car window. And then—

“Hi, Bonnie.” The words came, clear and right. She smiled, and the window rolled up. Her car moved on. And the rhythm resumed. Three steps forward. Bow. Hands fluttering. Turn. Three steps back.

I smiled, marking the small victory. Then I heard his commentary to himself begin...

“Hi, Kippy.” I frowned slightly and looked toward the road, but no one was there. He was still pacing, still moving, but now speaking quite loudly.

“Hi, Kippy.” He repeated, then a pause.

“Hi.” Then again.

“Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi…” The words tumbled out—one after another, but not the same. Never the same tone or accent. Each “hi” carried a different voice. Low and gravelly. Light and sing-song. Fast. Slow. A trace of a Texas drawl. Then something sharper and northern. A New Jersey accent…

It was as if a hundred people were speaking through him, every greeting he had ever heard, replayed, reshaped, examined. I sat completely still, listening. Leaning over the desk for a closer look, I watched him mimic seemingly every “hi” he’d ever received as he loped back and forth on his worn trail. Minutes passed, and still he went on.

“Hi, Kippy. Hi. Hi, Kippy…”

His eyes lifted at an angle toward the sky, his body moving in rhythm with the words, as though he were sorting them, testing them, turning them over in his mind. And then, at last—it stopped. He stood still, and said, quite clearly:

“Why does everyone say hi, again, and again, and again…?” I leaned forward, hardly breathing.

“She has said hi to me 300 times.” A pause.

“Why can’t they say it once?”

“I already know they say hi. They want to say hi.”

Another pause.

“She said hi to me 300 times!” I pressed my hand over my mouth with laughter. We were odd, that need to greet each other again and again in the same way.

Slipping out of the room, I shook, half with laughter, half astonishment, and called Dan.

“You won’t believe what I just heard,” I said.

“Our son… he doesn’t understand why all of us keep saying hello over and over again.”

But later, as the laughter settled, I considered it all.

Under the fig tree, Kippy had not just learned to speak our language; he’d been studying us, listening and cataloging! He’d been trying to understand why we say what we say, the way we say it, again and again. What was automatic to us was such a mystery to him. What was simple to us was something he had to piece together—voice by voice, moment by moment, and I realized: He was not just learning to enter our world. We were being invited, little by little, into his. It was a wonder and an adventure!