What is it like my son.....

Dedicated to my boy, Crew Daniel Binette…………..



My Silent Son


What is it like in your world my son. To wake up every morning with challenges like no other. To try so hard to explain what it is you feel moment to moment. To express yourself with a language that only the people closest to you can understand. To be put into situations that most little boys find tolerable yet you have had great difficulty dealing with. A haircut, a movie in a theatre, shopping at the mall. Why are these things so difficult for you to experience without frustration? Do you not understand the difference between patience and anticipation? Between beginning and end? Is it because you cannot control the situation at hand? Do you feel threatened and confused? Are you so sensitive to sound and touch that you can be perfectly calm if a truck drives past you but the bark of a dog sends you into utter chaos. You can bounce on a couch continually for hours but eating with a fork and spoon is nearly impossible. Toilet training was not accomplished until you were over five years old. You could sit for hours and not relieve yourself. Scratching and kicking and screaming until you couldn’t stand it anymore and finally, reluctantly giving in. And then rarely if ever having an accident like most newly trained children would. You have never enjoyed the taste of a red sweet apple because the texture will make you gag. Fruits, vegetables, steak, eggs and milk are non-existent to your diet. French fries, juice, Oreo cookies, chicken nuggets, fish sticks and crackers and candy are all your palette has tasted. Is a playful puppy viewed by you as if it were a wolf at your feet? You can remember places you were as a toddler. A hotel you visited once when you were two, a street where your parent’s friends live. A park you played at once is somehow burned into your memory. I constantly am looking for new routes to drive so as not to torment or tease you that we would be visiting those places today. However, you cannot recall how to say your name on command. A trip to the grocery store cannot be complete without a chase down the video aisle and leaving with a movie I have probably purchased several times before. You have no real friends but every child you meet tries to be one to you. You can play amongst other children but rarely play with them. You have no concept of time. You can play at 3:00 am as hard as you play at 3:00 pm. Can you understand consequence? You know not to jump out of a window or into a pool that is too deep, but to explain that you cannot have candy before dinner is not understood that it will ruin your appetite. You are rarely if ever sick and your size is age appropriate however you have little or no nutritional value to your diet. You do not take supplements or vitamins yet your energy and leg strength is incredible. You can leap off a couch into the air and land on your feet with ease but to catch a ball has been eluded by your motor skills. Why? Why can you memorize every upcoming event of a video you viewed once and imitate it before it happens but to dial a telephone is something you have not accomplished yet? You babble in what seems to be complete sentences in a language all your own, but to be able to tell what street you live on is impossible. I look at your future my silent son. Will you complete high school? Have a girlfriend? Drive a car? Try a cigarette? Share a beer with a friend? Talk on the telephone? E-mail your mom on the computer? Do the things that we do everyday and take for granted how simple these events are. What does your life have in store for you my son? Happiness and fulfillment is all I wish for you. As for me, I would give all that I have if one day you wake up and say “good morning daddy, I love you.”

With hope for you my son….

Dad