Essays, Chapbooks, Contests...Etcetera
AMY GRAVINO:
Essayist, Author & Certified Autism Specialist
Essayist, Author & Certified Autism Specialist
What Happened When I Met a Young Man with Autism in Target
By Amy Gravino
The first thing that I noticed was the feather.
He held it firmly in his fingers, and I watched as he traced the tip along the wall edges. Up, across, over, a pattern and a rhythm understood only by him.
But I knew.
It was a Friday afternoon in Target, and the din of people talking, machines warming food humming behind the counter, and the less-than-friendly overhead lights were all difficult to drown out. I kept my eyes downcast, focused on the breadsticks that I was eating, dipping them into the tiny cup of marinara sauce like a brush in paint, watching the crisp brown turn red.
I have not needed a feather of my own in many years. I knew why he did.
The woman with him—a sister, perhaps, or caretaker, I couldn’t be sure—spoke to him in that peculiar way. Autism-speak. The pitch of her voice just a shade unnaturally high, as if talking to a child instead of a 15-year-old boy.
“Can you come over here, Oliver?”
I felt her teetering perilously on the tightrope-thin hope that he would listen, be good, be still. But it’s hard to keep still when you know you make people uneasy just by existing in an autistic body.
Her praise for him came shortly after: “Good job listening!”
After a moment’s pause, Oliver kept moving, pacing around the cramped food court in slow, steady steps. The woman stood at the counter with a shopping cart, placing their order while keeping her gaze fixed on him. A myriad of emotions swirled through me as I tried not to stand up and shout solidarity at the top of my lungs. Instead, I kept quiet, carefully eyeing them both.
And then he stopped. Right behind my chair.
He hovered in what other people might consider uncomfortably close proximity. The feather was still clutched in his grasp, that source of comfort kept so close by. Flashes of the hair scrunchie I had always worn on my wrist came to mind, along with the memory of nearly clawing at my skin to escape the world around me, muted only by the soothing sensation of the fabric.
I get it. I’m a lot like you, Oliver.
The woman with him didn’t know that, though. She was looking in our direction, mild panic washing over her face as Oliver continued to stand behind me. Her shoulders tensed like I know my mother’s must have when I was a child and we were out in public. I could sense what would come next, could feel the word before she ever uttered it. She looked right at me, teeth pressed together tightly in an impossibly white row:
“Sorry…” she said, the apologetic twinge in her voice cutting like a knife in my stomach.
A stream-of-consciousness set of responses rushed through my mind:
Don’t be sorry! Don’t EVER be sorry! You never, ever need to apologize for him. HE doesn’t need to apologize for being who he is! NONE OF US DO.
I shook my head, pushing away the tears threatening to appear at the corner of my eyes and waved a hand dismissively. I answered her, my voice quavering slightly:
“No, no!”
Behind me, Oliver continued what he was doing, and I fought the urge to hug him.
The woman alternately glanced between the counter and Oliver, still uncertain. As I ate the last few bites of my breadsticks, I realized I had to say something.
I walked over to her, half under the pretense of throwing out the breadstick box in the garbage behind her, and took a deep breath.
"Excuse me...Is he autistic?"
Cautious optimism colored her cheeks, along with a hint of surprise. She turned to face me, her demeanor almost relaxed compared to how tense it had been moments earlier.
"Yes. Yes, he is," she replied, confirming what I had known all along.
Without hesitation, I responded:
"Me, too."
We quickly fell to talking, and I learned that she worked at an autism school nearby, where Oliver was a student. I told her of my work as an international speaker and autism advocate, and how I knew all-too-well what Oliver was going through, having been on that path myself many years ago.
It was a moment that none of us could have expected, our paths crossing in Target on a Friday afternoon. The relief on her face was drawn in shapes; round cheekbones that rose instead of sank, and lines on her forehead that had stopped creasing even just briefly. Happiness and wistful sadness filled me in combined measure, wishing that my family could have felt that relief when I was Oliver's age. How it would have meant the world to encounter a stranger in public who didn't stare, didn't whisper, point, or disdainfully glance in our direction. How it would have given us all such comfort to know that we weren't alone in walking this strange, unpredictable, incredible journey of autism.
For me, those years are long past, but for Oliver and so many others like him, and for their loved ones and caregivers, these moments are present and alive. As we move into the start of a new year, I am thinking of all the Olivers out there, the autistic individuals and families looking for promise and hope in the days ahead. As an international speaker, advocate, and someone who has been where you are: I see you. I understand, and I am here to help.
You are not alone.
The first thing that I noticed was the feather.
He held it firmly in his fingers, and I watched as he traced the tip along the wall edges. Up, across, over, a pattern and a rhythm understood only by him.
But I knew.
It was a Friday afternoon in Target, and the din of people talking, machines warming food humming behind the counter, and the less-than-friendly overhead lights were all difficult to drown out. I kept my eyes downcast, focused on the breadsticks that I was eating, dipping them into the tiny cup of marinara sauce like a brush in paint, watching the crisp brown turn red.
I have not needed a feather of my own in many years. I knew why he did.
The woman with him—a sister, perhaps, or caretaker, I couldn’t be sure—spoke to him in that peculiar way. Autism-speak. The pitch of her voice just a shade unnaturally high, as if talking to a child instead of a 15-year-old boy.
“Can you come over here, Oliver?”
I felt her teetering perilously on the tightrope-thin hope that he would listen, be good, be still. But it’s hard to keep still when you know you make people uneasy just by existing in an autistic body.
Her praise for him came shortly after: “Good job listening!”
After a moment’s pause, Oliver kept moving, pacing around the cramped food court in slow, steady steps. The woman stood at the counter with a shopping cart, placing their order while keeping her gaze fixed on him. A myriad of emotions swirled through me as I tried not to stand up and shout solidarity at the top of my lungs. Instead, I kept quiet, carefully eyeing them both.
And then he stopped. Right behind my chair.
He hovered in what other people might consider uncomfortably close proximity. The feather was still clutched in his grasp, that source of comfort kept so close by. Flashes of the hair scrunchie I had always worn on my wrist came to mind, along with the memory of nearly clawing at my skin to escape the world around me, muted only by the soothing sensation of the fabric.
I get it. I’m a lot like you, Oliver.
The woman with him didn’t know that, though. She was looking in our direction, mild panic washing over her face as Oliver continued to stand behind me. Her shoulders tensed like I know my mother’s must have when I was a child and we were out in public. I could sense what would come next, could feel the word before she ever uttered it. She looked right at me, teeth pressed together tightly in an impossibly white row:
“Sorry…” she said, the apologetic twinge in her voice cutting like a knife in my stomach.
A stream-of-consciousness set of responses rushed through my mind:
Don’t be sorry! Don’t EVER be sorry! You never, ever need to apologize for him. HE doesn’t need to apologize for being who he is! NONE OF US DO.
I shook my head, pushing away the tears threatening to appear at the corner of my eyes and waved a hand dismissively. I answered her, my voice quavering slightly:
“No, no!”
Behind me, Oliver continued what he was doing, and I fought the urge to hug him.
The woman alternately glanced between the counter and Oliver, still uncertain. As I ate the last few bites of my breadsticks, I realized I had to say something.
I walked over to her, half under the pretense of throwing out the breadstick box in the garbage behind her, and took a deep breath.
"Excuse me...Is he autistic?"
Cautious optimism colored her cheeks, along with a hint of surprise. She turned to face me, her demeanor almost relaxed compared to how tense it had been moments earlier.
"Yes. Yes, he is," she replied, confirming what I had known all along.
Without hesitation, I responded:
"Me, too."
We quickly fell to talking, and I learned that she worked at an autism school nearby, where Oliver was a student. I told her of my work as an international speaker and autism advocate, and how I knew all-too-well what Oliver was going through, having been on that path myself many years ago.
It was a moment that none of us could have expected, our paths crossing in Target on a Friday afternoon. The relief on her face was drawn in shapes; round cheekbones that rose instead of sank, and lines on her forehead that had stopped creasing even just briefly. Happiness and wistful sadness filled me in combined measure, wishing that my family could have felt that relief when I was Oliver's age. How it would have meant the world to encounter a stranger in public who didn't stare, didn't whisper, point, or disdainfully glance in our direction. How it would have given us all such comfort to know that we weren't alone in walking this strange, unpredictable, incredible journey of autism.
For me, those years are long past, but for Oliver and so many others like him, and for their loved ones and caregivers, these moments are present and alive. As we move into the start of a new year, I am thinking of all the Olivers out there, the autistic individuals and families looking for promise and hope in the days ahead. As an international speaker, advocate, and someone who has been where you are: I see you. I understand, and I am here to help.
You are not alone.
From the Apple to the Tree: A Message To Parents of Children with Autism
By Amy Gravino
The first time I rode my bicycle without the training wheels on, I fell.
I remember how the pavement scraped across my knees. I remember the way it hurt, the kind of pain that a thousand kisses and bowls of chicken noodle soup can’t ever seem to fix.
Without hesitation, Mom and Dad rushed to my side, bandages and tubes of ointment flying around in a first-aid ballet that you learn to dance when you are the parent of a clumsy child.
One day, that child had a question:
“Mom, why do you have so many books that start with the letter A?”
When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with autism. Most people hadn't heard of autism back then, and no one really understood what it was, or how to help us. The books that piled up on my mother’s nightstand were meant to give my parents answers, to be the guide that our family so desperately needed.
But what the books couldn’t tell us was how to live as a family living with autism.
“Amy, do your homework!”
My father yelled from three rooms away, but his voice rattled me to my core. Our fights had become more frequent when I was a teenager, so the computer became my refuge. I sat online for hours on end, typing in chat rooms to the only friends I had, and there I found acceptance, instead of the rejection I faced from everyone else.
Every day at school I fell apart, slowly crumbling inside at my inability to fit in. The computer was where I put myself back together, piece by piece. I felt as though my parents didn’t understand, didn’t see how hard I was fighting to get through every day alive. How, when I couldn’t do the things they asked of me, even the simplest things, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to do them. It was because I was afraid.
Eleven years old, and so desperately afraid of failing, of disappointing my parents and myself. Worst of all, I was afraid that my own parents hated me. My father did not accept me the way I was—autistic, different, weird—and I believed that no one ever would. The more time passed, the more I believed it and hated myself.
I remember falling in love for the first time.
Like the bicycle, I rode on unsteady legs, now three thousand miles away from my parents when I moved across the country after graduating college. The loud fights and slammed doors of my adolescence had slowly given way to trust, to my parents’ willingness to let their little girl go out into the world and become a young woman.
I ended up discovering a new kind of ache through falling in love, and as before, there was no balm strong enough to dull the pain. I hadn’t told my parents about the boy in question, and again, I was afraid. Afraid my parents would think I was immature and that I would lose their trust forever.
Everyone makes mistakes. But when you live on the autism spectrum, you remember those mistakes as vividly as when they first happened. You carry them with you, into your perception of yourself and your ideas of how others see you. I wanted my parents to see me as someone capable of living her own life, and I often feared they never would.
I remember speaking on a panel at the United Nations for the first time.
As I looked into the crowd, I saw my mother and father sitting there watching me. I saw the creases at the corner of my father’s mouth as he smiled, something he’d almost never done when I was growing up.
I look so much like him, I thought.
My heart swelled that day, and I was so happy to be his daughter. I knew that, after everything we’d been through, my parents were finally proud of me and listening to me. Now we listen to each other, and that matters more than anything else.
I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
The first time I rode my bicycle without the training wheels on, I fell.
I remember how the pavement scraped across my knees. I remember the way it hurt, the kind of pain that a thousand kisses and bowls of chicken noodle soup can’t ever seem to fix.
Without hesitation, Mom and Dad rushed to my side, bandages and tubes of ointment flying around in a first-aid ballet that you learn to dance when you are the parent of a clumsy child.
One day, that child had a question:
“Mom, why do you have so many books that start with the letter A?”
When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with autism. Most people hadn't heard of autism back then, and no one really understood what it was, or how to help us. The books that piled up on my mother’s nightstand were meant to give my parents answers, to be the guide that our family so desperately needed.
But what the books couldn’t tell us was how to live as a family living with autism.
“Amy, do your homework!”
My father yelled from three rooms away, but his voice rattled me to my core. Our fights had become more frequent when I was a teenager, so the computer became my refuge. I sat online for hours on end, typing in chat rooms to the only friends I had, and there I found acceptance, instead of the rejection I faced from everyone else.
Every day at school I fell apart, slowly crumbling inside at my inability to fit in. The computer was where I put myself back together, piece by piece. I felt as though my parents didn’t understand, didn’t see how hard I was fighting to get through every day alive. How, when I couldn’t do the things they asked of me, even the simplest things, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to do them. It was because I was afraid.
Eleven years old, and so desperately afraid of failing, of disappointing my parents and myself. Worst of all, I was afraid that my own parents hated me. My father did not accept me the way I was—autistic, different, weird—and I believed that no one ever would. The more time passed, the more I believed it and hated myself.
I remember falling in love for the first time.
Like the bicycle, I rode on unsteady legs, now three thousand miles away from my parents when I moved across the country after graduating college. The loud fights and slammed doors of my adolescence had slowly given way to trust, to my parents’ willingness to let their little girl go out into the world and become a young woman.
I ended up discovering a new kind of ache through falling in love, and as before, there was no balm strong enough to dull the pain. I hadn’t told my parents about the boy in question, and again, I was afraid. Afraid my parents would think I was immature and that I would lose their trust forever.
Everyone makes mistakes. But when you live on the autism spectrum, you remember those mistakes as vividly as when they first happened. You carry them with you, into your perception of yourself and your ideas of how others see you. I wanted my parents to see me as someone capable of living her own life, and I often feared they never would.
I remember speaking on a panel at the United Nations for the first time.
As I looked into the crowd, I saw my mother and father sitting there watching me. I saw the creases at the corner of my father’s mouth as he smiled, something he’d almost never done when I was growing up.
I look so much like him, I thought.
My heart swelled that day, and I was so happy to be his daughter. I knew that, after everything we’d been through, my parents were finally proud of me and listening to me. Now we listen to each other, and that matters more than anything else.
I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
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Amy Gravino, M.A., is a Certified Autism Specialist and international speaker. As the founder and President of A.S.C.O.T Consulting, Amy offers autism consulting and college coaching services for individuals on the autism spectrum, mentoring services for young adults with autism, and professional presentations for conferences, autism events, schools and professional development workshops.
Amy has given two TED Talks, spoken twice at the United Nations for World Autism Awareness Day (2011 and 2018), and presented to numerous audiences on a variety of topics, including autism and sexuality issues faced by girls with ASD, growing up on the spectrum, bullying and bullying prevention, and transitioning individuals on the spectrum to higher education. Amy obtained her master’s degree in applied behavior analysis (ABA) from Caldwell University in 2010. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Specialisterne USA, Yes She Can, Inc., and the Golden Door International Film Festival of Jersey City. Amy is co-facilitator of the Morris County support group chapter of ASPEN-NJ and is now authoring The Naughty Autie, a memoir of her experiences with dating, relationships, and sexuality from the firsthand perspective of a woman on the autism spectrum. |
Photo Credit: Jim Connolly
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