Writing About Charlie, Learning and Learning
“Hollie puts me into situations where I end up learning something about myself and about her.”
Says Trisha Kayden about her 7-year-old autistic daughter in a profile in the September 2nd Midland Daily News (Michigan). Kayden also notes that “‘If I couldn’t find a reason to laugh, I’d probably be crying a lot……You get rewards that other people take for granted.’” Kayden’s story, “McBuns” (about a trip with Hollie to McDonalds) will be included in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs, which is due out today.
The Midland Daily News notes that Kayden has been “writing in a journal for as long as she can remember” and that keeping the journal “helped her better understand and subsequently learn from” her daughter. This really resonated with me: Since he was a baby (and even before he was born, when I was expecting him), I have been keeping a journal about Charlie. The rule I have assigned myself is to write down, as objectively and as factually as I might, what happened. Not my feelings, not my hopes, not what I had done that day except as it pertained to Charlie. Maybe those seem like rather strict instructions to give to oneself, but the result has been that, when I have written about Charlie, I have been in the habit of trying to think very specifically about what I had seen him do and heard him say. I have learned not to shy away from writing about difficult things—-the messy, the smelly, the really really painful, the kaka (that last word is not a scatological reference, but the ancient Greek for “bad things”). And my journals have certainly proved an invaluable reference when charting Charlie’s reactions to various medications, reviewing how much trouble he was having with self-injurious behaviors (head-banging) when he was 7 years old, and reflecting on how he used to have a lot less difficulty falling asleep (it was about 2 years ago that Charlie started to have insomnia, which melatonin has helped him with).
I have written so many journals of Charlie ten years that I often wonder if I will ever have time to read them all over. I do feel more than a little reassurance to think that, should I wish to reflect on some moment in Charlie’s life, the journal in which I wrote about him at that particular moment is near at hand (literally: at the moment, all of the notebooks I have written in are in a long-unused diaper bag behind the chair of the table where I write).
Most of all, I concur with Trisha Kayden about how life with Charlie has put me “into situations where I end up learning something about myself and about” my child, and that writing about Charlie has helped me to reflect and to remember, especially the small moments—Charlie smiling at his piano teacher today out of the blue and saying “Hi Jeff!”—that can slip away too fast.
4 opinions for Writing About Charlie, Learning and Learning
mom to max
Sep 3, 2007 at 10:13 am
i agree so much! my son teaches me new things every day. i would not have discovered my writing if it were not for him.
i have logs i have kept from the very beginning…before my son’s diagnosis. very factual and they did help in knowing when to make changes, etc. i also wrote the other more subjective experiential stuff on support forums. this was to help me. i need my writing to heal, to connect, to reach out, and to ultimately give back.
mcewen
Sep 3, 2007 at 10:42 am
I’m not as disciplined or as objective as you but the ‘records’ are invaluable - hard evidence of growth.
It’s not as if we’re likely to forget those little arrows, but their arrival is always so startling.
We all, children and parents, plug away for years and then out of the blue these little fireworks explode so we can all admire the view.
Best wishes
FXSmom
Sep 3, 2007 at 11:08 am
Thanks for the heads up on the book. I had no idea one was coming out!!
Kiri
Sep 3, 2007 at 4:49 pm
What were some of the signs that led you to have Charlie seen about autism and how old was he at the time. My son, who will be 3 in Jan, has a speech delay and a lot of abnormal behavior problems that go beyond a normal 2 yr olds tantrum. I am concerned, but I dont want to seem like a paranoid, overprotective parent.
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