Preface

 Hindsight has 20/20 vision

Very few men love anyone more than their moms. 

There is a strong, sometimes complicated bond between a mother and her son.  It is a life-long dance of interdependence and total dependence and becoming independent, with the heart strings of affection, attachment, and detachment calling out the beat.    He counts on his mother for his sustenance at birth, pulls away to establish his own identity and through the years spins and turns and transforms into a source of strength on which she later leans, from which she draws power and sustainment.  Maintaining the balance between being ever present and interfering, taking one for granted and appreciating his presence, giving advice and listening, playing a pedantic role model or staying behind the scenes is practically speaking, a super human task for any mother.  Who could aspire to such feats that are absolutely paramount to how a male identity develops?  And when a poor mommy shows any sign of imperfection, she’s is labeled as a failure, the cause of all his ills, at least for a season, if not for eternity.

The awesome responsibility of mothering does not stop when a young man leaves home.  He has been marked for life.  Men often chose their soul-mate based on how she fares vis a vis to his mother.   Does she talk like Mom?  Does she listen like Mom?  How does she dress?  How does she carry herself?  Is she high strung or laid back?  Can she cook?  Will she be a good mother to my children?  A perspective wife will be graded (consciously or subconsciously) according to the criteria that a man’s mother has inculcated to him.   

I have sons, three to be exact.  The bond is such that each of them has become one of my very closest friends.  The commitment we have to each other and the bond that keeps that commitment solid are an integral part of all our lives.  We know how to undo each other’s nerves, how to welcome the ugly side of the other without any judgment, and how to say just the right thing at the right time.  We have all gone through periods of dependence and independence.  The beat is sometimes steady and balanced, and at other times erratic and teetering.  I have reveled in my successes and have been crushed by my failures.  And as a middle aged woman, I understand the weight of my influence on these sons as they turn to men.

William is the third of my sons.  He is a highly gifted and intelligent young man who has been diagnosed with several disabilities over the course of his life.  Some diagnoses made sense, some seemed to blend together.  Due to the extenuating circumstances of his childhood, the picture was never very clear.

William has rendered a quiet dance of dependence most of his life.  Sometimes it seems that he is just beginning to place a foot in a direction away from me; once in a seldom while he will take the lead or even take a step away.  But the waltz always seems to bring him full circle back to a stance of reliance.  

This book is the story of my dance with William.  It is the story of his journey through life from my perspective and misgivings.  It is a meandering of my inabilities to understand William’s reality and to cope with it once I began to comprehend.

This book is written for the woman who mothers a special son; one whose abilities and capabilities do not fit the expectations of his surroundings, one who struggles to be understood and appreciated for his strengths and is often penalized for his shortcomings.  For the mother who questions herself often, maybe every day, who wonders if his life, as well as hers, would not be different had she not done something differently.  For the mother who struggles with her temper, with her frustration level, with her inability to understand and cope with her son’s weaknesses; for the mother who has a hard time admitting that she is sometimes humiliated by her situation.   If you are any of these mothers, you are not alone.  I am one.  We are any and are coming out of the woodwork, out into the light of day to help the rigid world around us be more supple and sympathetic to our cries for understanding towards our special son. 

My hope is that you will be encouraged, challenged, and perhaps comforted in your own journey.  I hope that my poor vision will sharpen yours.

Introduction: Too Many Eyes Spoil the View

When William was young, his favorite insect was the dragonfly.  I remember a vacation on the east coast of Florida where one of these hideous creatures landed on William’s nose.   Everybody around him took off in all directions.  He walked around for over an hour, face towards the sky, modeling his catch.  There existed a quasi communion between them.  William and the insect were amazingly comfortable, one with the other.  A highly unlikely pair of comrades.   Maybe somehow they had an understanding that each shared the other’s secret, a secret about sight, about vision and perceptions of the world around them. 

A dragon fly has huge eyes that bulge out of the sides of its head.  They’re called cluster eyes.  You can’t miss them.  They are both frightening and slightly repulsive to the non-insect lover. They are oriented upward and to the sides so they don’t miss a thing.  These monster apparatus are composed of thousands of six-sided miniscule lenses which are each independent of the other and yet work together to give the insect incredibly detailed perception that can distinguish not only color and brightness, but is able to track electromagnetic waves, minute, almost unperceivable motion, and detect extremely rapid movement.  This is due to the fact that certain zones of the lenses are flattened and can let in huge amounts of light which greatly increases acuity.  The more light that comes into these lenses, the higher resolution of minute details. 

This highly precise sight is specially developed for the speed by which the insect travels.

Dragonflies are really fast.  In fact, they are faster than most other insects.  There are very few human beings who can boast about having caught a dragonfly with their bare hands.  The insects flit around effortlessly darting and swooping and twirling in mid air, zipping back and forth with amazing precision.   Their trajectory is not foreseeable by any mode or means.   Not only can they zip and zoom, but they can also hover in mid air, like a helicopter.  And as if that wasn’t enough, a dragonfly in this static position, can go from zero to top speed in a fraction of a second.  You could never sneak up on one of these little beasts from behind, or from anywhere for that matter.  Couple their speed with their incredible eyesight and you have one formidable adversary for any entity which is lower on the food chain.  

A dragonfly’s sight is perfectly adapted to its life in the fast lane.  Its ability to perceive the least detail of movement is key to its capacity to hone in on its prey at high speed.  A dragonfly is able to spot and catch a gnat in mid air at 35 mph because of its ability to see the effects of the movement of the tiny insect in the light patterns.  This is one aspect of reality at which the dragonfly is expert. 

Interestingly enough, as state of the art these blinkers may be they have their limitations.  Although they possess a highly developed ability to see details hardly perceived by other insects, they have surprisingly poor image resolution.   Dragonflies do not see the design of common everyday objects with precision.   To catch the gnat does not necessarily mean to see it.  The dragonfly sees the effects of the gnat and not the form.  In fact, the details of any given image are at best fuzzy.  Life is a blur. 

I have spent the last fifteen years of my son William’s life wondering about the accuracy of his image resolution.  William possesses an incredibly detailed perception of the world from a scientific point of view.  Even though he was very slow to read and write and painfully behind in communication skills, something in his mind’s eye let in great amounts of information.    He was able to gather scientific knowledge at an amazing rate.   He could explain the difference between “animal, mineral, vegetable” (a guessing game we used to play at the dinner table) at the age of four.  He could distinguish a female mosquito from a male at the age of five as well as give a mini-lecture on the distinctions.  He has always been a quick thinker, able to talk circles around his audience when discussing string theory, time warps, co-existing dimensions in time and space, and the notion of infinity.   But when it comes to basic image resolution concerning everyday life, watching a movie, going to a party, greeting an acquaintance in a public place, or holding the door for his sister, these are not so clear.  It took me a long time to realize that his image resolution of the common has always been blurry.  Maybe William’s perception of the world is too accurate.  A profusion of detailed information seemed to be constantly inundating his mind and so much so that it was difficult for him to simply accept the common norms of society without giving them a run for their money.

Perhaps, like the ability of the eye of a dragonfly to take in light, William’s intellect was able to receive an abundance of information concerning the details of life which skewed his vision of the conventional.