Autism Vox

Remembering the Red Schoolbus

by Kristina Chew, PhD on May 30th, 2008

My son Charlie is finishing up his best school year ever: Today, though bleary-eyed, he got out of bed on his own when I asked, pulled on his blue hooded sweatshirt, and shuffled out to meet the yellow school bus. It’s only a short ride as he attends a school in our town but once he had a far longer ride.

On the way to work a few mornings ago, traffic stopped almost as soon as I pulled onto the highway. I could hear the wail of an ambulance behind me. Cars edged over to the right and a huge truck kept glowering in my rear view mirror as it tried to get in front of me. Finally I could see that the two left lanes were blocked off—the flash of sirens was evident from there—and everyone was trying to squeeze into the right lane.

Then I saw a blue pick-up truck at an odd angle in the center between the two sides of the highway, where’s there’s a steep grassy ditch. There was a man inside with a black shirt talking on his cell phone.

Traffic crept forward. Now I could make out an ambulance and police men standing around.

I got into the one lane open on the right and inched forward and saw a blue minivan with its back end crushed in. Near the roof the words “SCHOOL VEHICLE” were stenciled in yellow. Near the right door was a stretcher and the EMT’s were hovering around someone one on it.

Once Charlie had ridden such a minivan—a rather banged-up red one—to the private autism school that he attended from December 2005-June 2006, when the school closed. The driver was Pakistani, as was the aide; both wore saris and scarves. Charlie had about a 45-minute ride each way, up major thoroughfares and on two highways. One day—when I saw him knocking his head on the window—I ran shouting after the bus, flagged it down. “Has this happened before?” I asked. The driver (the aide did not speak English) nodded: “Yes, it has. But—” and she shrugged.

As far as I could discern, neither the driver nor the aide had received formal training about dealing with challenging behaviors for Charlie and the consultant at Charlie’s school did her best, especially in light of the language barrier. As winter turned into spring, and the fabrics of the driver’s and the aide’s scarves went from heavy brocades to flowery silks, Charlie started to call for the “red bus”; sometimes the driver’s young granddaughter was sitting in the front seat when the aide slid the door open. Charlie hopped in and I had to wonder what other drivers thought about the “family” in the faded red minivan.

On the day that Charlie had his last ride in their red minivan, I gave the driver and aide flowery plants. “I hope you like them,” I said. “Gift is gift,” smiled the driver.

None of us have forgotten that minivan and its driver and aide and I’ve thought often, what a responsibility to transport a child like Charlie, unable to explain in the words of any language that he might have a stomachache or want a window open, and on a long ride in morning traffic. Am I glad now that Charlie goes to a school that is in our town, in a yellow school bus from the county with a bus matron and a driver with a walkie-talkie handy. There’s no more highway driving.

Needless to say, when I see a minivan on the road that says it’s a SCHOOL VEHICLE, I slow down, and think of Charlie’s red schoolbus.

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POSTED IN: Charlisms, Education, Family, Schoolbus