"Mommy!" Jethro’s eyes were like saucers. "It’s a worm!"
I sauntered down on my haunches to take a better look. Jethro didn’t talk much; he didn’t talk at all, really. I took in the fat caterpillar that had captured his imagination. It was yellow-green and hairy. I remember that I laughed and held him back—he wanted to touch it.
"Let it be. Leave it alone; it’s in its own world. Don’t interfere."
He turned a sweet, cherub-ruddy face at me, questioningly.
"It’s a caterpillar," I offered unnecessarily.
My relationship with him was tenuous at best and very quiet at worst.
But I loved/love him, absolutely.
Of course, I wanted—no, I needed—him to love me back. I wanted to be his mother.
Jethro’s real mother died of cancer when he was three years old. I wanted to be his everything, but, obviously, that was ridiculously unfair of me. It was ridiculous!
Jethro filled my world. He forced me to see things that I usually missed and that most people in this fast-paced world miss all the time.
It’s so odd that it took a worm to connect us.
It was so odd.
"Mommy!"
The word cuts through me like a knife; I’m butter...
It was the only time he ever said it.
He wasn’t my child. He isn’t my child.
He has a relatively rare condition that prevents him from interacting with other people in a normal way.
Autism is an impossible sentence for a child. It’s impossible for everyone.
He is no longer in my world. I have no power to change that.
I have no power.
I miss him every day.
His father sends me a few progress reports every now and then. Then, more often than now.
...but I will always remember the day he said the word:
"Mommy"