This comes to us compliments of our dear friend Sheridan Folger:
Yesterday I received a call from a friend. A friend I hadn’t talked to more than a dozen times since serving in the Army together back in the early 90’s.
It was good to hear from my old friend. His voice touched off a hundred nights of laughter, some cold mornings in hasty positions, a few scary moments and some things I couldn’t quite put my finger on in my memory.
He was eager to hear about my life now, my family and especially my children. I gave him the typical run down and quickly brought him up to date. Naturally, I next inquired about his life, his family etc.
I asked about that beautiful little baby girl he brought into this world the year he returned home from over-seas. I wasn’t prepared for his response, and I could tell he hadn’t expected me to be.
It began typically enough: “Folger,” He said. (He still always call me by my last name, it’s a hard habit to break for all of us.) “Folger, you wouldn’t even recognize her. She just turned sixteen! She’s beautiful, I tell ya’ man she really changed my life. You have no idea how she’s kept me going.” I interrupted; “Sixteen that’s driving time we’ll see how well you keep going having that to deal with.”
There was a pause instead of the chuckle of agreement I anticipated. “ . . .Well I don’t really have to worry about that Folg.” “She’s (he used her name; for privacy I am not) Autistic. We found out when she was two. It was pretty rough for a long while, man. Actually that’s why I’m calling you.”
He asked if I remembered some of the old videos we made at some of our gatherings, party’s, cook-outs etc. I stumbled for my words, “Uh, well I er . . . remember people filming on occasion but that could just be flash backs.” (Yeah I’m one of those guys that resort to humor when I’m stuck). It worked, he laughed a bit. He went on to say “Yeah there’s a few of ‘em we don’t let anyone watch, hehe.” “You know we’ve been really trying all kinds of things with her over the years. My wife is constantly researching and talking with folks, she’s even met with Jenny McCarthy before. I do the same thing; we go to a lot of stuff together or even the three of us together.”
He explained for a while many of the various therapies they had tried, the ones they still use, what works the best, what doesn’t, and so on. He lamented over the misunderstandings of others and got choked up talking about, well . . . talking. He explained the pain he felt all the times he had tried to communicate, talk with or connect with his daughter and fell short.
When he described the lengths that he goes to to simply keep communicating with his daughter, I have to admit I had a tear in my eye thinking about my own kids. My lil’ Sheighlyn, who will be 4 this month, MaKayla, who’s 6, and my son Dylan, in Jr. High. They are all so talkative, so willing and eager to connect. They thirst for it, and seek it out if they haven’t had enough.
They have vocabularies that greatly exceed their years. No one ever believes they are as young as they are when they speak with them. My girls especially like to talk to Daddy. Just sit and talk. It doesn’t matter if it’s serious, silly, or Q&A. We have no trouble connecting. But I thought about it. I thought about what it would be like if Sheighlyn couldn’t explain to me how she felt, or if she felt. If MaKayla had the same response; whether I gave her a juice box or gave her a hug; if Dylan was more comfortable sitting alone instead of with Dad. It hurt to even consider it. It didn’t seem possible.
Careful not to get lost in my own thoughts I shut them down and continued listening.
My friend went on; “Any way, the wife and I were watching one of those videos one afternoon. I don’t remember how it happened exactly. We bought a new TV and were moving DVD’s around and boxing up old tapes and stuff. We found some of them and popped one in. Before you know it we had stopped our little re-arranging project and were hooked watching it. We were watching this one of you telling stories and doing your ol’ crazy shit for a good half an hour when I happened to look over my shoulder at the sound of a giggle. My daughter was standing there behind the couch with the biggest smile on her face. She put her hand on my shoulder and pointed to the TV and told us that the “Jig Man was funny.” I scooped her up and put her on my lap next to my wife. Dude, I had tears in my eyes and so did my wife. We sat there and watched two more whole tapes, man. She never took her eyes off of it. Every time there was a spot where you were telling a story or a joke, she was glued to it. Not only that, she kept talking, about all kinds of things. Things she liked, things she thought were funny, places, stuff … just everything!”
You see, in one of the videos I was doing an Irish Jig to some traditional Irish music, and in another a fierce jig was part of the story I was telling. I tend to get pretty animated when I go into story mode.
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure if this was some kind of joke or, or what it was.
Again I bumbled for something to say and didn’t come up with much; “That is funny. How ‘bout that? I guess everyone can laugh at a fool brother.”
He didn’t even pay attention to what I said; “You don’t get it, man. She was doing things and saying things that she’d never done or said before. She really liked you. She’s watched every one of those tapes over and over, dude. She knows all your stories probably better’n you do!”
“Well that wouldn’t be too hard,” I said. He agreed.
He spent another ten minutes or so telling me all about it and all about her. The more he talked the less shocked, less sad I felt. I actually began to feel pretty happy for all of them. She sounded like a wonderful girl and it was obvious he had a very cool family.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know jack about Autism. In fact, all I know about Autism I’ve learned at a dear friend’s publication http://www.autismhealthandwellness.com. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic publication and Yomin Postelnik is an a amazing, knowledgeable and caring guy, however that is the extent of my knowledge on the subject and that certainly does not make me an expert, let alone even knowledgeable. I can tell you that we discussed some of the things I had learned on the site and my buddy knew all about them; in fact he brought some of them up.
I know others who have children with Autism. I’ve been blessed and all of my children, nieces, nephews, etc., are all healthier than I am, for Heaven’s sake. Anyone that knows me knows that I can’t stand not ‘knowing’ something. So it was a bit odd having my old friend talk circles around me when it came to this.
My friend then said he wanted to get back to why he called. I thought all we just discussed was why he called. I was wrong.
“Sheridan,” I knew he was serious now, what with throwing out the first name and all. “Sheridan, my wife and I would like to know if you would be willing to talk to her. Just, I don’t know, just talk to her and see what happens.”
“Right now?” I asked somewhat surprised.
“No, no, no. Not now, hell she ain’t even home right now. I know it sounds stupid man, I know. You just, well, I gotta’ see if it’ll help. Man, just the fact it may make her happy would mean a lot to us.”
“It isn’t stupid, man.” I said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what the hell I would say, or if she’d want to, dude, but I will.”
“You don’t have to you know, I just . . .” I cut him off. “Dude, I said I’ll talk to her and I meant it. It doesn’t bother me at all. I think it’s cool that you would even ask me, honestly.”
So that’s the short version of how it happened. We spent the next few minutes talking about when, etc., and exchanging all of our numbers, and so on. We spent a few more minutes talking about some other stuff, and that was that.
Skip forward to this evening, which is when we planned our call. We wanted to make sure we both had time, it was quiet, and that my buddy’s wife would be home.
The phone rang when it was supposed to. It rang again. Holy shit, I was nervous. I am never nervous, especially when it comes to talking to someone. Somewhere in that realization the phone rang a third time. “I need to answer the phone,” I told myself. It rang again and then . . . again. I picked it up on the fifth ring.
“Hello.” I said in a tone that was not my norm. “Hey man!” My friend’s voice bounced back. “This is cool man, so glad you are doing this for us. I got her right here. You’re still cool right?”
“Uh, wh’… yeah, yeah, man. All set o’er here!” I said in a manner I was certain sounded unconvincing.
“Excellent! Here she is, Folg.”
There was a moment of fumbling and whispering and then a faint, sweet “Hello” came over the line. I said, “Hello.” Then silence for a second and another “Hello” from the other end. That was followed by some more silence. The quietness echoed in my head as my mind quickly emptied. Quickly, I just started talking. I don’t have the slightest clue about what or why . . . but I did. I talked for a bit. I asked some questions and didn’t get any responses. I was starting to think this was a bad idea. I could picture my friend on the other end, crouched probably somewhere near his daughter watching wide eyed and hopeful. I felt like I was letting him down more and more, minute by minute.
I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t shut up. I talked some more. It seemed like I had been talking forever, like I was droning on for hours about nothing, really. I felt like the somnifacient king of grogginess and snore. In reality it had been about 11 minutes. I did a half-assed job of trying to wrap up whatever it was I was letting spill from head and asked to speak with her father again. A quiet “Yes” hit my ear and a moment later my pal was back on the line.
“Hey Folger, man, you’re the best. Thanks a lot. We really appreciate it. We weren’t sure what would happen or if she would even talk to you, so we are really glad we called.”
He sounded more sincere than ever, but he also didn’t sound as excited as he was when they had first called. I didn’t hear his words; instead, all I heard was the hollow sound of nothing, a nothing that was supposed to be something. I didn’t know what to do but I knew I didn’t want to hang up.
“Hey you guys are online, right?” I said in a voice that was happy enough to surprise even myself a bit. “Yeah of course, why?” he asked.
“Do you have a cam on your computer and all that?” I asked. “Yeah” he said slowly.
“How about Skype?” I asked. (I must have sounded like Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck with the rapid successive nature of my questions.) He told me he had no clue what I was talking about. I explained it to him like that hyper little terrier that bounces around the big bull dog in the old Warner Bros. cartoons. I walked him through downloading it and getting it running etc. I don’t think he was expecting me to have him do it right then and there, but I didn’t care; I pushed him into it.
It took about 15 or 20 minutes and we had it up and running on his PC. I told him we should do a quick test call with one another and make sure everything was working okay. I explained that we would be able to talk whenever he wanted for free and with video, etc. I also hinted that if he ever wanted me to talk to his daughter again that we could use it for that as well.
He agreed, still not really grasping my plan, and we fired it up. He was smiling and said it was pretty cool. “It’s like Star-Trek, dude.” He said. “Crazy all the stuff we can do now.” He added.
He told me I still looked the same and said he looked twice as old as I did, then I showed him my thinning hair and he laughed.
Then I asked him if I could talk to his daughter again. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea, or even if I thought it would be a good idea. I don’t know what made me do it or what made him say yes . . . but he did.
Within a few moments there she was. She sat in front of the little camera with a headset on looking at her lap. She had long auburn hair and a porcelain quality to her skin. She was a pretty young girl. She looked like any other slender, pretty sixteen year old girl you would see anywhere in America.
I just stared at her for a moment. It couldn’t have been that long but it was long enough that I told myself to stop it and start talking.
I talked for a minute, reminding her who I was. I saw her dad touch her shoulder and her arm and point at the camera. She kept her eyes in her lap. She nodded once or twice, and fidgeted with her hands.
I talked for a bit.
Then I said that the Jig Man wanted to see those pretty eyes. She looked up.
I felt a lump well up from deep inside me and swell up through my throat. I coughed and held back, quickly blinking away any chance of a tear.
“Hey kiddo, there you are!” I said, happily and jokingly. She was still looking . . . and listening. I kept talking. As I talked I noticed she was more relaxed. Her eyes never dropped back to her lap, she stopped fidgeting with her hands and didn’t move the headset around. I talked for a long time. I talked about my kids. I talked about the movies she had watched and she smiled. I talked about her dad and she smiled some more.
Somewhere in my seemingly endless babble I missed something, something pretty important. She started talking to. Sometimes just adding something to what I had said, sometimes talking about the same things and sometimes about something altogether new.
That realization stumped me for a minute and without a train of thought to follow, I went back to talking about the videos of me she had seen again. She started talking about all sorts of things, but mostly dancing.
I told her a story that I knew she hadn’t heard from one of the old tapes, hell I think I made it up. I made sure to adjust my webcam and throw an appropriate Jig into the story. I also made sure to include some of the other elements of the story telling I had found out she liked.
She laughed out loud. She smiled . . . it was like an angel breaking free from stone. There was relief, happiness, beauty, innocence, purity, curiosity and peace all wrapped up in that smile. It was freeing and I felt selfish for how good it made me feel.
Without even thinking about it, without even realizing how foolish or awkward it may have been, I asked her to dance with me!
She popped up out of the small grey computer chair, her arms flung around her elbows and shoulders almost in a hug . . . and we danced.
I got off the phone with her about two hours ago. Tired, a little bewildered and experiencing a sort of high, I found myself unable to go back to work. Basically I just sat here . . . thinking.
Ten minutes ago my friend called me again on my cell phone. He was crying. It was hard to make out anything he was saying. Struggling to thank me and get out some other words he again sounded happy and sad all at once. His thanks though partially inaudible were some of the most heartfelt I had ever heard in my life. It actually made me wonder if I had never done anything to deserve one before today. Somewhere deep inside I think I may have made a mental note that I should be doing all I can to earn them more often.
Before we agreed that it would be best for him to give me a ring back tomorrow night, I did hear him say one thing perfectly clear: “I’ve never seen my little girl dance.”
*As I said in my note, I don’t really know jack about Autism. I know it has stricken far too many families around our country. I know awareness is up. I see the commercials, hear the ads. I read my friends website. I know it could be better. I know there can be more help. I know we can find a way to stop it. I know we can. These kids aren’t lost. . We are. Take the time to learn about Autism. Tell others. Find out what you can do to help. As for me . . . If all I can do is a drunken Irish Jig and a pretend waltz over a webcam . . . then I am going to be one dancing fool for a long, long time.*
