Home Is Where the Home Is

A Lynchburg, Virginia, father is upset that his 16-year-old autistic son was taken away from him and placed in a mental institution far from home for a day. Gordon Bowyer told WSET news that “‘they took him from me, and they took him by force.’” Bowyer and his son, Joshua, were waiting for an appointment at Central Virginia Community Services when Joshua became upset and “officers took him into custody at Lynchburg General Hospital.”

Bowyer – “They went in like they were raiding a crack house. And my son screamed out ‘no!’ He was real scared, you could tell by the tone of his screams. And I could hear him hollering ‘daddy, daddy!’”

Community Services couldn’t comment for this story. And to be fair, officers had an order from a judge telling them to take Joshua to a hospital in Staunton. But his dad thinks health workers went too far.

Bowyer – “I was in the office for him to be treated, not mistreated.”

I’m not certain of more of the details here but I can feel Bowyer’s angst at what seems to be a very unexpected separation of his son from him. I can and must most certainly say that one of the most important things to me in the world is that I’m able to tuck him in bed at night. He likes to have his three fleece blankets (two of which he’s had since he was a baby) folded and stacked just so at the foot of his bed; there’s two more fleece blankets, one of which is big enough for a king-size bed and which Charlie wraps tightly around himself. I know Charlie won’t be living with us forever but he’s a child, and a child who has a very limited ability to communicate and express himself. Things could happen to him if he weren’t with us and we might, could, would never know.

Here’s hoping that Joshua and his father can get the help they need with Joshua still and safe at home.