A few weeks ago, on the way to school, she suddenly stopped, looked up at the sky and said, "Wanna skip on the clouds."
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A few nights back she asked to go for a walk before going to bed. So I took her outside, freshly bathed, wearing her pajamas. We slowly stroll, hand in hand, down our block. She was looking up at the sky. We get past the trees covering her view and we find the moon.
She stops and says to me in her sweet little sincere voice, "Wanna sit on the top of the moon."
I melt, as I always do, and I told her, "Someday we will, Elena. Someday."
For a five year old girl who doesn't really talk, she speaks some of the most amazingly beautiful sentiments I have ever heard.
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| in the public domain |
This bright star caught my eye last
night. It seemed to me to be glowing, flashing, with different colors -- red.
blue, green -- almost like it was moving. I stopped and looked at it for minute
or two. It was captivating me.
I didn't know what star it was, so I went and got out our iPad and opened up the "Star Walk" app. It's an app that if you point to the sky, in any direction, it displays what's out there, even satellites. Turns out it was Arcturus -- the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere, 36.66 light years away. It was...exceptionally vibrant.
Funny thing, I had to take Nicholas in for a medical appointment last Friday morning and afterward, on the drive to take him to school, he asked me from out of the blue if Arcturus had people. I was kind of taken off guard.
"You mean, the star?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
We talk about the universe but it's been a few months since we had a real specific chat about the night sky. It's not extraordinary that he brings up space, but he is usually more interested in the planets than stars. I mean, this is a boy who had memorized the entire solar system before age two, before he could put together a three-word sentence. That's living with autism.
"It could. It really could, but I don't think they'd be people like us. They'd be different. They might look like us but they might look a little different. There are probably lots of different people from all over the universe, because there are so many stars. Arcturus could have people though."
"Are they nice?" he asked.
"Yes, they're nice." I replied. "If there are people in Arcturus, they are probably very nice."
And that was it. I took him to school, without another mention of it. It was a good little conversation - a rare treat around here. Autism has many mysteries, some of them harsh and difficult, and some of them intriguingly beautiful.
I didn't know what star it was, so I went and got out our iPad and opened up the "Star Walk" app. It's an app that if you point to the sky, in any direction, it displays what's out there, even satellites. Turns out it was Arcturus -- the third brightest star in the northern hemisphere, 36.66 light years away. It was...exceptionally vibrant.
Funny thing, I had to take Nicholas in for a medical appointment last Friday morning and afterward, on the drive to take him to school, he asked me from out of the blue if Arcturus had people. I was kind of taken off guard.
"You mean, the star?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
We talk about the universe but it's been a few months since we had a real specific chat about the night sky. It's not extraordinary that he brings up space, but he is usually more interested in the planets than stars. I mean, this is a boy who had memorized the entire solar system before age two, before he could put together a three-word sentence. That's living with autism.
"It could. It really could, but I don't think they'd be people like us. They'd be different. They might look like us but they might look a little different. There are probably lots of different people from all over the universe, because there are so many stars. Arcturus could have people though."
"Are they nice?" he asked.
"Yes, they're nice." I replied. "If there are people in Arcturus, they are probably very nice."
And that was it. I took him to school, without another mention of it. It was a good little conversation - a rare treat around here. Autism has many mysteries, some of them harsh and difficult, and some of them intriguingly beautiful.
Odd how, if you think about it, in a way, that it suddenly was there tonight, Arcturus, big and bright and colorful, getting my attention, making me wonder what I was looking at, making me want to know.
Then again, if you think about it, in another way, maybe it's not so odd after all.
It's just another beautiful mystery.
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