Autism and Dolphins, Is There a Connection?—-I’m not inclined to speculate too much, aside from noting that a dolphin is the best metaphor I can find to describe Charlie swimming in the ocean. (As for taking better photos of him swimming—I’d need a camera like this, and hope it can withstand sand, surf, and salt water!)

To remember Evan Kamida, here’s a small and lovely thing to do: Take a photo of flowers at a swingset and post it to this Flickr pool. Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Graf Gronenberg have posted more information.

Here’s Charlie’s swings, with an orange flower for Evan.

The swings are on a playground on the part of the Jersey shore where we go every year, and that is the place where Charlie is most at home. He’s had many, many a ride on those swings and we’ve had many a meal, with family and with friends, on that very picnic table, with a view of the bay, so peaceful, so lovely.

Today’s Sun has an interview with Emma Noble about her 7-year-old autistic son, Harry. Noble is a model and television presenter and was formerly married to James Major, the son of former British Prime Minister John Major. She talks about her despair and feelings of isolation when 2 1/2 year old Harry started to show signs of autism; when he did not recognize his own name. He’s made “phenomenal progress” now and, as she says,

“He talks ten to the dozen now and is a real chatterbox. When I think how I felt after his diagnosis it is like another lifetime.

“I felt I really wanted to know why. I was very angry, very upset. It was a form of grieving, a bereavement. But that feeling dies – the desperate wanting to blame – and what takes over is the day-to-day living.

“We have come a long way and now I can honestly say I don’t feel bereavement. Time helps things move on.

“You have to be very positive – and Harry makes that very easy.”

I have to echo Noble’s sentiments. Things have been tough for Charlie and for our family in the past—at that confusing and chaotic time of the diagnosis, all those long moments wondering if Charlie would ever talk, the struggle to find the right school for him—and still today at times. But it’s truly Charlie himself who has helped me to stay “very positive.”

And yes, he really does make doing this “very easy,” sometimes by surprising us on a sudden with some new word or skill; other times just because it means so much to look across the room and know that he’s our boy, here with us. Noble indeed notes that it was her son Harry who “‘pulled [her] out of that despair” and Charlie has always given me so much hope.

Also notable about the Sun article is that, in two photos of Harry playing with his mother, only the back of his head can be seen “to protect his identity.” I think this is important: When I started blogging in June of 2005, I posted photos of my son regularly. I’ve since felt it very important to protect his identity; hence the few photos I post are shot from the back of Charlie’s head or in a muted profile (plus he likes to wear his hood over his head, anyways). I’m grateful to be able to share about him in a public setting like this, but Charlie’s privacy comes first.

I heard a drawer open and noted Charlie in the kitchen, a roll of Scotch tape in his left hand. He hummed and mumbled while leaning over the counter. There were soft ripping sounds: Tape tearing. On glancing into the kitchen, I didn’t see any gigantic wads of tape accruing on the counter and went back to answering work-related emails.

Later—picking up Jim’s blue coat and various random items from the floor of Charlie’s room—I found this doily heart:

(The sparkles are where there’s tape.)

The heart had come home in Charlie’s backpack two weeks ago on Valentine’s Day. He has been occasionally putting it back into the backpack and looking at it, and the heart had gotten ripped, just like so many of my favorite photos of Charlie, in the time—a few years ago—when he tore any photo he found in half, and then into bits; there went many precious pictures of him on the merry-go-round with the happiest smile and a big baby in Jim’s arms.

The first time this happened, I took out some tape and, prompting Charlie to say “help, fix it,” carefully taped the pieces together, only to find the photo ripped apart a few hours later. Charlie giggled gleefully while pointing to the confetti he’d made. He grabbed my hand and said “help, fix!”—-and then he cried and moaned when he saw how the taped-up photo looked compared to the originals, and even more when the photo had been shredded and wrinkled and taped too many times to be fixed. Sometimes Charlie tried to tape the pieces of photo back together himself, but his long fingers struggled to measure out small enough pieces of tape and small mounds of the sticky stuff—looking like abandoned birds’ nests—littered the floor. Eventually we told Charlie that if he tore up a photo, that was that, and for years most of our photos were hidden in the darkest corners of the basement.

Slowly, slowly, Charlie has learned to use the computer mouse and to look at digital photos. He looks at regular photos now too, and without incident, and keeps careful watch over these treasures, stored in his ghost bucket.

As I inspected the doily heart on the floor of Charlie’s room tonight, I saw that the tears had been repaired by the careful application of a winding piece of Scotch tape.

That the heart, a little ripped for the wear, had been made whole again.