I watched Samuel amble from the car toward his school this morning. Every morning it 
is the same thing: I park in front of a house down the street and he walks toward his school, crosses in both crosswalks and walks through the gate at school.
Once I say my final “I love you” that is the last time he indicates I am there.
The rest is his own, setting out into that world he and I inhabit, but for him it is different.
My beautiful son has high functioning autism. I don’t know exactly how he experiences the world. He is mainstreamed into a general education class and does reasonably well in his classes, but he isn’t very motivated to participate and I don’t know what to do about it.
I watch him walk to school and I pray this will be the breakthrough day, the moment he will find some friends among the “regular” kids.
His teachers tell me he does interact and I want to trust them but I have a difficult time believing.
His communication has improved lately. He is more likely to ask me questions when he doesn’t understand instead of flipping instantly into anger or denial. He initiates topics beyond his Nintendo Wii. He still doesn’t like to discuss his classes much which makes homework difficult, but we do the best we can do.
Next year is Middle School. This week my goal is to talk to the principal at the school he is supposed to go to and see what we need to do to begin planning. Depending upon how she responds to me will initiate my next step. 
There are soap bubbles rising up in my belly.
Sometimes I ask myself if my fear for him will ever go away completely. I don’t think it will, I think I will simply learn to cope with it better.
I hope I learn to cope with it better.
This post was written from a prompt from BloggyMoms.com Blog Dare. The prompt simply said, “The story behind...”
© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott
