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Nervous Laughter

When I was eight years old, Uncle Russell came to visit. He was my mother’s cousin, but everyone called him Uncle Russell. He was twenty years old and had a severe case of cerebral palsy.

Russell was pigeon-toed as I had never seen before, causing his knees to face each other. He walked in a spastic, bouncing stumble. His hands were gnarled and bent at the wrist, fingers curled, in a way that my brother and I found impossible to imitate. His long neck was thick with muscles pulsating from the strain of holding his large, constantly moving head.

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Follow THIS LINK to read my guest post for Lisa Belkin’s Motherlode blog in the New York Times

I sat on the sofa that looks out our living room window, my attention torn between the People magazine in my lap, and Matthew, who was sitting cross legged on the front lawn, inspecting — or was he dismembering? — a dead butterfly. A heap of laundry on and around the coffee table nagged at me – I was just too tired, too scattered. Peter wandered in from the kitchen, beer in hand.

“Where’s Matthew?”

“Right there,” I said frostily, motioning to Matthew.

An Excerpt from A REGULAR GUY: GROWING UP WITH AUTISM

A NEW MEMOIR REVEALS THE REALITIES OF AUTISM

LINK TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE

It was Matthew Shumaker’s strange obsession with wheels and drains that spurred the first nagging doubts. While other toddlers tumbled down the padded ramps at Gymboree, or giggled under a billowing parachute during the baby games, Matthew toddled away to examine the wheels on a small rolling cart.

Other children conversed. Matthew echoed what other people said. He didn’t make eye contact. And his attention could be completely derailed by the sight of water swirling down the sink.

KQED Radio: Not So Special Needs

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