Baby L said my name this past weekend. "Mom mom mom mom." It was unmistakable. For months he's insisted on calling both of his parents "Dad," which may have been a baby protest of normative gender roles or something. But this weekend, he finally said "Mom."
His language--both verbal and non-verbal, both receptive and expressive--is blossoming, and it is exciting to watch this miracle unfold. He points to what he wants and sometimes pairs it with words (to go outside, for instance, he points to the back door and says "side"). He's also mastered saying when he wants more of something or when he's done. Without prompting, he signs "more" when he wants more, and when he's done, he puts his hands in the air and says "dah, dah, dah" for "done." And every time he communicates with me, I get choked up. It's so amazing, so amazing.
Yet the beauty can be bittersweet. The other night, Beh was taking a shower, and I stepped in the room to see how he was doing.
"Do you want more shower, or are you all done?" I asked as L pulled himself up to the side of the tub, interested as always in what his brother was doing.
Beh had a perplexed look on his face, like he knew I was asking something and wanted a response from him, but he had no clue how to give me what I sought.
"Do you want more shower," I said as I signed more, "or are you all done," I said, again with the sign paired with my words.
Beh was still completely lost.
"Do you want shower on or shower off?" I thought different words might help him find his voice. I said it again.
"Shower off," said Beh. I really didn't know if he said it to communicate, or if he was just echoing me, but I took it as communication.
I leaned down to move L's hands from the edge of the tub so that Beh could open the shower door. L, this tiny boy who loves his big brother so much that he wants to always be with him and do whatever he is doing, gave me a bit of a fight. He didn't want to move even one inch away from Beh. As I gently moved him, I looked at him, and my heart broke a little bit. Here was this fourteen-month old who could do something that his nine-year-old brother has to fight--HARD--to do every day. Concepts like "more" and "done" are simultaneously so simple that a baby can master them and so challenging that a fourth grader has to give all the fight he has to grasp them. My heart hurt for Beh, that he had to fight so hard to grasp something so many of us take for granted.
I turned the water off and Beh giggled as he burrowed himself into his towel. L bounced up and down, squealing in glee at the sound of his brother's laugh. I looked at them again, and this time, instead of feeling the bittersweetness of L being able to express things that Beh can't, I felt hope. L doesn't look at Beh and see autism; he doesn't look at him and see limitations. He sees someone he wants to be just like. There's an ineffable beauty in such unconditional love. It is a love dependent in no way on words; it is a love that I know will follow Beh through his lifetime. When he can't find the words, his little brother will be there to help him find his voice. L sharing the language he's building be a voice for Nick . . . I can't imagine a more beautiful gift a brother could give.
