It will not be easy to answer.
At the Rainbow Centre website, under the “Frequently Asked Questions” section, one can see the question: “Can my child ever live a normal life?” No one can give a set answer.
It is not as though any proper-minded person will start belting the song Que Sera, Sera in great hearty tones. The best anyone can give is advice. And so Rainbow Centre.org advises parents to send their child for early intervention, as it can “make all the difference”.
I do not advertise my brother’s autism, because people would then ask questions. These questions, as I have mentioned, are either difficult or impossible to answer. It takes too much time and thought for a passing conversation. And so I have taken the time and thought to answer the many questions here instead, which is the more canny thing to do.
I have not myself worked as a Special Education teacher. It is not that the thought has never crossed my mind. But I do not think that I have enough fortitude to tend both to Jan at home and then to the children at the special school. One must definitely have marvellous masses of physical energy and emotional reserve. I am just not sure how marvellous or how massive.
Seeing as how I have taught preschool, while at the same time tending to Jan at home, it is possible I just might have the savvy to pull it off. However it is not worth the gamble for me to test my threshold, and risk shortchanging either Jan or other special needs children.
The 2nd Step
My mother has a difficult time stepping into special schools. She gets sad when she sees the children. It is different for a mother; no matter how close I may be to Jan as his sister, Mum is still his mother. There is a whole gamut of emotions the mother of an autistic individual experiences, that words cannot come close to doing justice.
I suppose that I take for granted the beauty and blessings the children possess. When I was younger, I used to weigh whether Jan had gotten the better end of the bargain with his autism. It was not out of jealousy or anything of the like, but a serious, genuine, intellectual consideration. And I made lists about things that Jan could do and I could not, and vice versa.
For instance, Jan did not have to go to regular school. His school had games and nice teachers. To a regular primary schooler like myself with loud, hassled-looking teachers (some of whom looked like they wanted nothing better than to pack their bags in a great hurry and catch the next plane to the other end of the world), this seemed like a big box of chocolate-covered caramel teddy bears wearing chocolate chip cookie berets and tunics made of cotton candy.
I, however, got to play with my friends and cousins, and celebrate birthdays and festivities. Those were fun. It seemed to me at the time that Jan did not really want to do any of those things, and so I thought he could not be having much fun.
Jan could go to bed and wake up whenever he liked, while I had to rise at unearthly hours for school. But I got to keep any pocket money that people gave me, to buy crackers or coloured markers if I wanted them. Jan had his pocket money put away by my parents.
Jan could, without a care, toss his milk bottle aside after drinking his fill, stretch and yawn and be content, and I would be the one to go on a bottle hunt when he wanted it back. (My mother is fond of joking about how I was always very cranky going on these baby bottle hunts, because Jan’s bottles always ended up in the most interesting places.) I, on the other hand, was not allowed to do the same.
Jan could do offbeat things and behave with people any way he liked, if he interacted at all, and there were no adverse consequences. I always had to be proper and polite, and it was a trying task for me. I was never a very sociable child, but still I had to interact with strange grown-ups even if I did not want to.
My parents never made me feel like the second-best child, or took it for granted that I would be alright if left alone simply because I was not special needs. They gave us equal attention.
I suppose it helped that I was fond of Jan; I had probably likened him to a walking teddy bear. And when we made our parents angry, we both got yelled at. I suppose that would seem fair to a child.
In the end, there are many things my mother goes through that I cannot relate to, and so I can walk into a special school with a much livelier gait. Perhaps it is simply naiveté. There are a lot of things to observe and analyse, to cheer on and to admire. These schools were also places that made my brother happy, and as a child I had only positive associations in my mind with them. I still do.
One particular place we brought Jan to, though, affected both my mother and I deeply. It was not quite a school, but a half-day home with training activities. The home also took in those who were mentally ill.
There were other children with autism, but only a few. I did not learn till later that they had low-functioning autism. I was a teenager then and had not come across many such individuals.
The ones that I did meet had always been still, with beautiful but vacant faces. I
