Tragedy, comedy, epic and autism every day: Sunt lacrimae rerum

My original description of Autismland, my weblog about my then 8 year old, now 9 1/2 year old, autistic son Charlie, was “the autism reality show.” I called it this because I wanted to present, as honestly as I can in words, what Jim’s and my life with Charlie is. There are plenty of very difficult and painful moments—-painful for Charlie even more than for us, I think; the past Monday was very much one of those days. Describing Charlie screaming and banging and twisting his body on the kitchen floor—describing one’s child in what some refer to as the stuff of the “nightmare” of autism—-is a wrenching exercise for a parent; for anyone. And to what end do I showcase Charlie’s suffering, if not to make a case for the awfulness of autism?

In my post about Monday, Proteus in Autismland, I turned to the Classics—to ancient Greek and Roman literature—not exactly to make sense of what had happened and of why my arms were so sore from hanging onto Charlie. I wished simply to be able to write about an experience that is what a Roman poet Virgil calls “the tears of human things and these mortal matters touch the mind.”

sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt

This is line 462 from the first book of the 1st century BC Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid, the epic poem of how the Trojan prince Aeneas flees from his burning city and journeys to Italy to found a new city that one day will be Rome. If I may offer a less literal translation than “the tears of human things and these mortal matters touch the mind” for sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt :

“These are the tears of what it is to be human
and what mortals do touch the mind.

Aeneas says these lines to his friend Achates as the two behold paintings of the Trojan War in a temple in Carthage (the modern Tunisia). Aeneas is overwhelmed at the sight of the terrible losses of his own family and friends—the lacrimae rerum—of himself, depicted in art (and art by strangers, by a foreign people, the Carthiginians).

It is possible to read Virgil’s Aeneid as itself a work of art in which the losses incurred by the Trojans and specifically by Aeneas are transmuted into something greater and more long lasting, the great city of Rome. This being an autism blog, I will not be attempting this here. I will note that, just as Aeneas not only finds solace and even understanding in seeing the paintings of the Trojan war, so do I take comfort and learn something about life in Autismland through the Classics.

While I still try to present all the realities of life with autism when I write about Charlie on Autismland, I now also think of life with autism as an epic poem on the scale of Homer’s Iliad as it tells of the rage of Achilles and the Trojan War, of the Odyssey which charts the hero’s adventures amid monsters like the Cyclops and the enchanting Calypso—-an epic shot through with moments of terrible tragedy and the purest comedy when it seems that I, and Charlie sitting in a pile of fluff unstuffed from a large pillow, need never stop laughing.

My own view of life with autism as epic, tragedy, and comedy all wrapped up into one was the main reason I was displeased with the view of autism presented in the original 13 minute version of the Autism Every Day video, as I wrote in May 2006 in Autism Every Day and in July 2006 in Karen McCarron, Alison Tepper Singer, and misplaced compassion. The original Autism Every Day video presents one side of life with autism, the side that I would relate to the sufferings in tragedy. The video does end with parents expressing their love for their children and their intention never to “quit” trying to help their children and to find a “cure” so that (as one mother puts it), when her non-autistic is old enough to have a child, autism can be prevented. The sufferings of the parents in particular are emphasized, as these quotes from some of the mothers in the video suggest:

“”I feel like I’m in this game, it’s like life or death to me”—–”Your heart is breaking all day long—you think about his future and all the pain he’s in and I don’t think they understand that”—–”It’s like you had a hangover the next day but you didn’t have any fun the night before”—-

Life with autism is a lot more than suffering; ours has plenty of moments of laughter, joy and fun. It is a good life.

My understanding from reading the description of the new, three-times-as-long version of Autism Every Day that will be premiered tomorrow at the Sundance Film Festival is that more of the comedy of life with autism will be in the film; I hope Autism Speaks will make the film equally available to all to view and comment upon, as they did with the first version. I am curious as to what has been added in an additional half-hour-plus of footage to make the video a “candid portrait” of life with autism—-a portrait of the reality of life with autism.

I cannot, of course, truly offer any comment on a film I have yet to watch, so suffice it say that I hope that the new Autism Every Day mixes in some of the comedy with the tragedy, as these few scenes of life with autism will probably be seen by many and over and over again. If life with autism is an epic, a 44-minute film cannot really do justice to it—can only present a part of what such a life is like, can only present one scene of life with autism. We’d need an epic film on a far grander, wide-screen scale to capture this.

In the meantime, I will return to my own epic-tragic-comic reality show, starring my hero, a boy named Charlie.