Spidey Heart

The boys and I were on the way to Noah's social skills group on campus (only on the waiting list for a year--SOO excited for the first session finally). Noah noticed various things has he gazed out the car window. First it was a "lost cat" sign. Lost pet signs are rather disturbing to him; whenever he sees a cat or dog wandering around the city, he wants me to stop and get the strange animal in the car so that we can return the lost pet to its home. 

We continued along and then Noah noticed a cemetery. There were a couple of diggers--backhoe loaders? Noah would know the exact term--and he wanted to know what they were doing in the graveyard. I explained that they were digging a new grave.

We continued along and then Noah announced: "I'm only afraid of two things."

My interest piqued. Before he always said he was only afraid of one thing (the dark); I was curious to hear about thing two.

"I'm only afraid of two things: the dark and death."

Wow. Much weightier than I had expected. 

As I drove, we talked about death. He told me how it was something that he worried about all the time. I gently listened. I said some comforting things, but I also believe he deserves the respect of my honesty, so I didn't paint pie-in-the-sky visions of some heaven with candy-lined streets or anything like that. 

Then the conversation quieted, and we continued along, Noah quietly watching the world outside his window. 

I heard him sniffling. Once, twice, again. "Noah, do you have the sniffles?" I asked.

"No," he said as I turned onto Mountain Avenue, "I'm sad. I miss Nutmeg."

He was crying for the cat I'd had for sixteen years, the cat that he'd known since birth, the cat that passed away in November.

I wanted to cry, too.

Instead I reached behind my seat and pet his leg as I drove, told him I missed her too and that I knew it hurt.

Soon we'd pulled into the parking lot at the speech clinic and took my son in my arms as he cried for his cat. I held him for as long as he needed.

When Noah tells people about his Asperger's, he says he has "Spidey Senses." It's true. He has a heightened sense of awareness when it comes to sensory details. Sounds are louder, colors are brighter. But I also think he has spidey senses of the heart, feeling things more deeply than the average person. It's a beautiful, sometimes sorrowful, thing.