Like a Rock

"No Diggity" by Blackstreet

...I like the way you work it / No diggity / I'm 'bout to bag it up...

I found and read an article on www.CNN.com about a young boy with autism who was lost at sea with his father. I identified with all the things the father spoke about(click here to read it). The father kept track of his son as the boy drifted farther and farther away by reciting lines from Disney movies his son loved. (They were both rescued and survived).

My brother has autism and I often shout out beginning lines of catch phrases from different shows and movies he likes for him to complete them. He always laughs when I begin them. He understands it as a game and he loves it. I thought it was so cool that someone else does that with the child with autism that he loves.

It is a strange affinity. I love him because he is my brother. I love him because he is sick and I think if he knows he is loved, he can do much better than if he didn't know. I feel like I have to protect him, defend him, and save him from a world and culture that may not care about him.

I love a giggly, energetic boy with autism named Lima. He is the last of us to be born and the reason that we stick together, despite the tumult that is our family relationship. I was talking to Bri today and mentioned that. We go through a lot as a family and although our culture strongly emphasizes the unconditional love of family, I am not sure we would have upheld that without Lima Bean.

No matter what goes on within our family, no matter how angry we get with one another, we seem to be willing to reconcile for his sake. He is our atom and we are his electrons.

Even in this current tempest, his 18th birthday is this month and my parental unit is throwing him a birthday. Despite the fact that I don't really want to talk to them, I will definitely go because he is my sunshine, our sunshine. It hurts sometimes that the trials in my life have trumped my obligations to my brother. However, no life is without trials, so when court is adjourned, I'll return to my duties as his loving and attentive older sister.

We don't say things like "I love you" at my house, or show much affection at all, but we all tell Lima that we love him, when he wakes up, when he goes to sleep, when he returns from school, randomly when he passes through a hallway. Lima is the only thing we love more than we love to fight.

I love a child with Autism.