The Non-Run Away Bunny

Every night when I put Cale to bed I cover him up with his puffy blanket and push the button on his singing toy.  Then I smile big into his face and with all of my might sing the words to the toy's wordless melody.  He's always stared long and hard at my mouth, watching my lips closely as if he's studying the sounds I'm making.  And before his fourth birthday, my heart broke in doing this.  I could never tell if he saw this a bonding experience or if he simply saw me as another one of his toys that makes music for him.

I remember the day I turned four years old.  I got a new blue dress, a Raggedy Ann doll that was as big as I was, and shiny black, patent leather shoes that I'd asked for for months with my rather large collection of spoken words. 

The shoes made the ground slippery under my feet.  Having had no experience with this, I ran full speed, holding my giant doll, through the garage with the intention of reaching the back yard.  The bottoms of my new shoes didn't make it two running steps across the polished concrete of the garage floor before slipping right out from under me.  My legs flew into the air, my dress tangled instantly around my ankles, and the back of my head hit the concrete with a thud.  I cried, hugged my mom, and learned all about not running with dress shoes on.  Still, it was the best day ever.  I fed Raggedy Ann chocolate cake, christening her with her first grubby kid touches, and then kissed her night night before falling asleep happy, full, and absolutely exhausted.

I've been waiting for Cale to turn four.  Not the kind of watching the clock waiting.  No.  The waiting for the universe to change it's course kind of waiting.  The 'not savoring the present moment because I'm waiting' kind of waiting.  The "I won't be okay until" kind.  The hopeless sort, the kind that keeps the soul stopped dead in it's very tracks.

I've always thought that four was the perfect age, the magic turning point, the switch from toddler to child.  And it was those things for Alden and Isabel.  Most of my own memories started at four years old, direct communication was in full swing, and potty training was but a distant memory.  I could go outside by myself, I knew to look both ways before crossing the street, and there was no need to scream anymore, ever, unless of course my head hit concrete.  But the single most important and most profound thing that happened for me by four years old, the thing I've been waiting for in Cale and that happened by four for both Alden and Isabel, was that I could tell the people in my life with my words that I loved them.

I thought about all this as I stood in the baby aisle at Target trying to decide what birthday present to get Cale.  I couldn't decide whether I should get him the push button spinning ball thingy that said 6mo. and up on it OR the baby gum ball machine full of brightly colored plastic "gum" balls that said 18mo. and up on it.  The latter required two steps (turn the knob and push the lever) to get the ball to come out.  My dilemma was that I knew he'd love the spinning ball thingy but felt he should have the more challenging toy, even if it would just piss him off in which case I'd have to listen to more screaming.  In the end I bought both baby toys, my expectations for Cale's fourth birthday shot out of the air like a bird mid-flight.

Cale just doesn't think the way regular people do.  It's not that he doesn't love me although that is what it looks like sometimes.  Usually when I try to play with Cale he gets upset.  This is generally because I don't understand the way he thinks.  When we're stacking cups, for example, he stacks three and if you add another it's incredibly disturbing to him.  I don't know this going in to the situation, it makes no sense to me what-so-ever, nor could I guess it ahead of time.  So when I add the fourth cup he screams, throws the cups at me, and walks away.  This is because he has no words with which to tell me what he's thinking.

At about the third activity I try to engage him in, with the result of him screaming and walking away, I become so upset that I can't try to play with him anymore.  So I put him in the bath tub where he calms instantly.  It comforts him a great deal to pour water out of a cup in a steady little stream, watching the details of it as it lands on the tub's edge and then trickles back down into the collective pool where he sits.  If I grab a cup and try to pour with him, he usually screams and turns his back to me and I end up feeling like he loves the water more than his mom.  But I keep pouring anyways.

What will he remember when he grows up?  He won't have memories of asking for shoes and running through the garage.  He won't have the delightful memories of pretending to feed dolls chocolate cake.  Will he remember the fourth cup?  Will he remember the screaming?  Will he remember the details of the pouring water?  And what will he do with that?

On the night of his fourth birthday after he'd smeared birthday cake on his face like a one year old, loved the 6mo. toy and hated the the 18mo. toy, and didn't seem to notice at all that it was special day for him, I put him to bed realizing that the magic four year old mark had completely lost it's memorable nature.  The sharpness of this snipped the last of the stitches in any remaining seams of my hope for Cale becoming "normal" some day.

I laid him down in his bed at bedtime, covered him up with his puffy blanket, and thought, "Maybe it's time to start reading to him more seriously, and not just Brown Bear, Brown Bear or something else of a repetitive nature.  Maybe an actual story.  Maybe four can mark the day he sat still for an entire story."  I was desperate for something.  Anything.

So instead of pushing the button on his singing toy, I grabbed the very first story book that happened to be laying on his floor amongst his toys and I began to read it.

He layed in his bed and watched my face closely.  The book I had grabbed was "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown, and I had no idea it would hit me like a pound of concrete right between my eyes.  I was almost sobbing about the second sentence in.  It goes like this:

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.  So he said to his mother, "I am running away."

"If you run away," said his mother, "I will run after you.  For you are my little bunny."

"If you run after me," said the little bunny, "I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you."

"If you become a fish in a trout stream," said his mother, "I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you."

"If you become a fisherman," said the little bunny, "I will become a rock on the mountain, high above you."

"If you become a rock on the mountain high above me," said his mother, "I will be a mountain climber, and I will climb to where you are."

"If you become a mountain climber," said the little bunny, "I will be a crocus in a hidden garden."

"If you become a crocus in a hidden garden," said his mother, "I will be a gardener,  And I will find you."

"If you are a gardener and find me," said the little bunny, "I will be a bird and fly away from you."

"If you become a bird and fly away from me," said his mother, "I will be a tree that you come home to."

"If you become a tree," said the little bunny, "I will become a little sailboat, and I will sail away from you."

It was here that Cale put his hand on my arm.  I suddenly realized that my face was contorted and my eyes were soaking wet, so I tried to smile as I kept reading.  But, he put his hand on my arm again.  I stopped reading and looked at him.  He was staring into my eyes with a serious look, a confused crinkle right between his eyes. 

He continued to stare at me for a few moments with that serious look, his giant gray eyes not blinking one time.  Then he gently poked my eye and looked at the tear drop sitting on his finger before looking back at me again.  "Oh my God!" I thought.  Right then I realized that he wasn't running away.  He was right there.

Then he grabbed the book, threw it on the floor, and smiled big as he put my hand on his singing toy and began bouncing softly to the imaginary beat.  So I pushed the button and sang and he smiled his big baby smile and something about "normal" versus "not normal" shifted and became "who cares anyway."  Baby Cale gave me his own magic mark on his fourth birthday.  He let me know that I'm not a just a toy, and maybe even that he loved me.

the rest of chapter 2

My brother, and only sibling, is one and a half years younger than I am, isn't married, and openly admits never wanting children.  He has never been in a serious relationship.  We all thought he came close once, but this relationship involved a woman that blatantly took advantage of him.  She talked him into slowly giving her the thousands of dollars he'd saved over the years.  And once the money was gone, so was she.

I've often worried about him feeling lonely.  He lives alone in a room he rents in the attic of an old house.  He lives there because he's not sure if "they" are still trying to get him.  They may be.  It wouldn't surprise me.  And they may not be.  I really can't tell because I love him so much my blood vessels almost burst right out of my body when I look into his brown eyes - eyes that haven't hardened even slightly since he was four years old.  He feels safe on the top floor of that house and that's all that matters.

I sat next to him at the table wondering if he'd eaten anything yet that day as I watched him inhale a heaping plate of appetizers.  My mind had started in on it's incessant loop again.  With my chin in my hand, looking right at my brother, I once again started feeling sorry for myself that I had no experience what-so-ever with autism.

"Two of my kids are autistic," I said to him.

"Oh yeah?  Huh..." he said swallowing whole chunks of cheese ball and looking into my eyes.  Really wanting to know what that meant but not knowing how to ask, he continued with, "that's too bad."

"Yeah," I said looking back at him and not knowing how to sum autism up into one coherent definition, "too bad."

I got up, went into the living room, and sat down in the recliner next to the Christmas tree to watch my kids.  My grandmother was keeping them busy by having them sort each family member's presents into separate piles.  She used to have my brother and I do the same thing when we were little and I couldn't help but smile.  The few minutes it took to sort the presents on Christmas Eve. were some of the most exciting moments of the entire year when I was growing up.  These were the moments that built the delicious anticipation to new heights which would then be released into piles of baby dolls with real diapers, tinker toys, Star Wars action figures, and piles of sparkly paper all over the living room floor.

Isabel was really trying to help sort the presents, but she kept putting them into the wrong piles.  Alden would then quietly correct her by waiting until she wasn't looking and then putting them into the right piles.  I smiled even bigger as I thought about the fact that Alden and Isabel remind me in so many ways of how my brother and I used to be.

"Are we ready?!" Alden finally asked, "Is it time to open presents yet?!!!"

"Just a couple more minutes Alden," I said.

I looked down at the unwrapped box he was holding and the smile slid off my face.  It was one of the three that my brother had brought in and it was from the Build a Bear Workshop in the local mall.  My heart dropped two inches inside my chest while I allowed myself to envision what my brother may have gone through to get my kids these presents.

It got dark outside early that night.  And it was so cold.  The temperatures were stuck well below freezing while soft, fat snowflakes landed by the millions on the thick, dark ice that covered every square inch of each street.  The snow plow guys were surely in sweaters next to warm fires, enjoying turkey dinners and opening presents with their kids as the streets disappeared under the storm. 

Not knowing what kinds of toys my kids liked, what movies they were into, or what on Earth to get them for Christmas, he'd set out on a little journey to find something an hour or so before having to be at my grandmother's house for Christmas Eve.  His perception of how long things take a little off, but doing the best he could.

Not thinking of the fact that toys are much cheaper and easier to access at a place like Target, he had driven his sometimes working car with it's sometimes working heater through the snow and over the ice all the way out to the home of our childhood toy store - the local mall.  He parked and walked through the dark parking lot alone, not sure if it was safe or not, and went inside to where the old toy store used to be.

Upon realizing that our old toy store wasn't there anymore and not sure where else to go, he wandered around until he found the Build a Bear Workshop.  Seeing that they sold toys, he went in and picked out three different bears.  A brown one, a light tan one, and a dark sort of caramel colored one.  He then took them up to the counter to purchase them as they were.  Naked.  And a well-meaning sales person started in on him with complications.

The salesperson explained to him, in front of everyone else standing in the line, that you're supposed to put clothes on the bears.  She explained that you choose several items of clothing for each bear and dress them, giving each bear a distinct and flavorful personality to match the distinct and flavorful personality of the child the bear will belong to.  She let him know the cost per item and wanted him to make snap decisions about the bear clothing. The cost per item was not an even number and was hopeless to multiply by four items or so for each bear and then multiply that number by three, while everyone was standing there watching him, smirking impatiently, and wondering why he hadn't just gone to Target for three naked bears.

He didn't know what they were thinking so he was immediately overly embarrassed because, like so may times in his life, he'd missed something that everyone else seemed to get.  And not able to deal under pressure with complex directions and impatient people, he declined the sales person's offer of clothing.

"No thank you," he said, "I'll buy them like this."

Then she looked at him.  Maybe surprised, maybe disgusted, maybe even downright irritated, he didn't know.  But something.  He'd missed something.  Again.

After all that he was afraid to ask them to wrap the gifts and he left the store, glad he at least had something to bring my kids for Christmas.

I went back into the kitchen where he was finishing up his plate of appetizers and wanted to hug him.

"Build A Bear Workshop huh?" I said, looking at him.

"Yeah," he said, "they wanted me to put clothes on the bears."

"Well isn't that just silly," I said.

I still did not see it.  I really did not see it.  God had to put the puzzle pieces RIGHT in front of my face and then click them together with a snap.

Right then Isabel, who had just noticed that my brother was there, came into the kitchen.  She walked over to him in her stiff, clumsy way and held her arm straight out in front of her up towards him.  She waved her little hand.  Just her hand moved, nothing else, and she said, "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

He turned to face her in his stiff, clumsy way and held his arm straight out in front of him down towards her.  He waved his big hand.  Just his hand moved, nothing else, and he said, "Hi Isabel."

And I saw it.  I saw it softly and quietly, but it's weight was no lighter than a four ton boulder landing directly on my head.