Deceitful Nostalgia

The semester was going to start itself up again, and so I spent a summer day on campus, handling the minutia of academia. I stopped off at the new Writing Center space that would be my home, navigating my way through the labyrinth of shiny glass walls and the smells of new furniture.

And then I took a walk four buildings down to my old home, the former space of our campus Writing Center. The space is housed in Bear Down Gymnasium, a building with a rich historical tradition. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Bear Down is one of the oldest buildings on campus and bears (haha, no pun intended) the name of the university's athletic slogan. As the story goes, in 1926 John "Button" Salmon, starting quarterback and student body president, was in a fatal car accident. Before he gave up the ghost, he had one last message for his team mates: "Tell them . . . tell the team to bear down." Thus a quarterback died and a legend was born.

Then, in the 80s, the gym was used in Revenge of the Nerds. That gym the nerd guys are sleeping in when they have nowhere to live? Bear Down.

So as I stepped up to the door and slid my key into the hole, I felt a bit sad to be letting this place go. It wasn't just that it was a legendary space; it was a home, the place where I had to kick tutors out of my desk so that I could have somewhere to sit, the place where I watched tutors catch mice with plastic cups.

I fought with the knob, and the door finally opened. I was greeted by a burning stench of mouse urine and rotting mouse carcass, a smell so insipid that it burned my nose, burned my throat. I went over to my desk to round up a few items that hadn't made the move to the new location yet, and I saw that the filing cabinet next to my desk was littered with mouse feces. I set about gathering my things--quickly--and felt the sweat beginning to roll off of my skin in the hotly humid room, air conditioned by an archaic system installed probably half a century ago.

Then I left. Quickly.

I wonder how many things in life are like that old, mouse-infested Writing Center. They are the things we've known, and so floods of nostalgia make us feel sad about leaving them. How many relationships and jobs do we hold on to because they are what we've known and thus fear to give up? How many of those things would we find to be mouse dens if we only took the time to step away from them for a bit?

I haven't been back since that day. I'm content to leave familiarity behind . . . and make a new home.

No Dogs Allowed

When I was a kid, the movie Snoopy Come Home stuck with me, haunted me. Snoopy tries to visit the beach, go to the library, and ride on a train, only to be taunted by ominous "no dogs allowed" signs. He tries to visit a sick little girl named Lila in the hospital, who needs his company to feel better, but again those "no dogs allowed" signs thwart Snoopy.

All he wants to do is be with a little girl who needs his love, and a heartless institution refuses to see the healing he could bring.

A news story this week brought back all the memories of that childhood trauma about dogs not being allowed to help a sick child, but this time the story was real, not fiction.

Most of you know about my love affair with autism service dogs. Service dogs help children with autism make emotional connections, help soothe them as they negotiate the stressful world of neurotypicals, prevent them from running into a street, and act as a retriever when a child with autism wanders away (as they are apt to do). Organizations like Dogwish help families raise money for autism service dogs. I sooo wanna get one of those dogs for Nick.

But if I do get a dog for Nick, it is questionable whether or not his school would allow his canine companion on campus.

Six-year-old Kaleb Drew's family is fighting for Kaleb's right to bring his service dog to school. The school cites issues such as other students' pet allergies in their argument against Kaleb's yellow Lab, Chewey. And yet, according to Alejandro Miyar from the Department of Justice, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, "a person with autism would be considered a person with a disability in nearly all cases, and a service animal is any guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to someone with a disability." And thus you would think that Kaleb would be allowed to bring his dog to school. The Villa Grove School District in Illinois doesn't see it that way.

So it goes on to a judge to decide in November. My only hope is that the courts will see the healing potential of service dogs and force schools to pull up their "no dogs allowed" signs.

Snoopy needs to be allowed in the building.

Crying over class postings

It's the day we've been waiting for: class postings at Noah's elementary school. Yes, school starts Thursday, and they only posted classes and supply lists today, but that's how it works at his school.

I went to campus do to some course-prepping of my own, then I stopped by the elementary school on my way home to find out who Noah's teacher would be this year. I found his teacher and wrote down a name I didn't recognize--it looks like his teacher is new to the school.

And then, I don't know why, I glanced across all the other listings. Second grade, first grade, kindergarten . . . and then, right next to kindergarten, a paper labeled "multicategorical" with the names of eight children.

I cried.

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Nick's ISP meeting was a couple weeks ago, and as I sat with his DDD case manager I saw all the goals I'd laid out for my son over the years. I still remember sitting down with John as Nick was leaving early intervention to chart out those goals for the first time. The very first one that I asked John to write down was that I wanted to see Nick mainstreamed (possibly with an aide) by the time he reached elementary school. Each year, every annual ISP meeting, I see that goal again. And each time I see it, I realize it's less and less feasible.

Nick will start kindergarten next year. He has maybe eighty words, but none of them are really conversational. Well, that is unless the conversation is about trains, then "stop, train, stop," "Percy slow down," "Thomas, Toby, James, Edward, Gordon, Percy" (in that exact order, always) are conversational. He's beautiful and intelligent and sweet, but he's nowhere near ready for a neurotypical classroom. Nowhere near ready.

And so next year I'll see Nick's name listed under "multicategorical" when I drive up to the school to see the boys' placements for the year. And I'm okay with that, okay with who he is . . . I'm just a bit sad as I mourn the dream I had for my son.

But dreams can always be replaced with new dreams, which is the beautiful thing. And Nick, he's utterly irreplaceable, which is the other beautiful thing.