#shortstory – Snail Trek Blog

Autism Speaks

There’s a catchy autism awareness bumper sticker I see around town; maybe you’ve seen it, too. It says, “Autism Speaks.”

It’s a catchy phrase because I’ve experienced that frustrating non-verbal characteristic of autism. I’ve never had a conversation with my 10-year-old grandson who has autism. The non-conversation is not because we’re never in the same room, and it’s not because we don’t love each other. It’s because of autism. As a youngster, Levi enjoyed the monosyllabic language any typical two-year old utters. In the garden, his hair scrambled and sticking out as if electrified, he would point and proudly call out, “Bird! Bird!” just like his father had at that age, many years before. Stumbling forward, eyes wide, he would seek out another bird to practice his language on. Other words emerged, appearing just as his small-person personality was beginning to bud and to bloom.

But then, gradually, like a weighted blanket drawn over part of his brain, his communication gradually quieted, then nestled into numbness. Slowly as the tide retreats, the silence gathered, and eventually, without fanfare, Levi just stopped speaking. Mysteriously, something in his brain stopped the typical synchronization with the fresh-blossoming world around him, and the silence moved in.

Autism is a strange thief, picking and choosing different skills to manipulate in different brains. The boy who lives with his mother two doors down the street suffers from a kind of autism with no “Off” switch. Their house is a museum display of a mind that cannot turn off, autistic developmental history scrawled onto ruined walls with crayons and magic markers. His is a brain possessing a limitless mania to disassemble pieces of electronics that were previously functional, and an unending requirement to express language like an open faucet with a broken valve. Or, more accurately, controlling his need to communicate is like trying to turn back Niagara Falls.

Contrast him again with our Levi, absent of the ability to generate any conversation at all. When energetically prompted, yes, he can repeat words, but they hold little meaning for him. They are learned behaviors, empty containers to comply with one-word instructions of those around him. Birds on the wing no longer speak to his soul.

Yet Levi is happy. He expresses gratefulness through body language. He has learned to hug! He rolls upon our bed, over and over, enjoying the exquisite softness of the bed covers. When he takes a shower, there is no stream too strong or too long to satisfy his love for water. And he laughs, oh, can he laugh, great belly laughs that contaminate a room with joy.

Is his autism at times discouraging? Yes. Hopeless? No.

Many years ago, when Team Jesus rolled into town, it was like nothing else anyone had ever witnessed.* A team of modern-day medical experts could not have done better. It was not really a three-ring healing circus. It was a One-Man show, with Jesus in the center ring, the other rings empty save for those needing his healing service. As the gospel song testifies, “Jesus on the mainline (—in this case, the center ring—) tell him what you want.”

The lame? Zap! Done. Walking again.

The blind? Biff! No problem. Vision restored.

Crippled folks? Boom! All those in attendance leave this meeting under their own power.

Those who couldn’t speak? Hurrah! Words given, conversation gained.

Wait a minute…”those who couldn’t speak”? That’s autism! Jesus recovered speech for the autistic? But back in the day, there was no such disease diagnosed as “autism.” Yet it happened.

No one knows exactly how autism works, where it comes from, or what triggers it. But I understand autism just a bit because I confess that I, too, have “it,” autism, that is.

I have the kind of autism that robs that part of my brain of certain kinds of speech. It’s the autism-like cloaked part of my brain that takes kindness for granted and does not show enough gratitude to the grocery clerk or the waiter or the neighbor. It’s the part of my brain that does not say, “I love you,” to those dearest to me. It’s the part of my brain that does not thank for my health, for my bank account, for this day, for the sun. And yes, it’s the part of my brain and my soul that expresses little gratitude for the song and the flight of the bird, bird, bird.

Indeed, autism is a spectrum, with great variation of effect. And a great variation of lessons to be learned.

So there’s hope for us all, wherever on the spectrum because, well, we have got to believe, we cannot forget—we must say it aloud—that all things are yet possible.

For surely, Autism Can Speak and Does Speak to us all.

*Matthew 15:29–39

The High Cost of Living

During just the first two months of 2022, the price of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup at Kroger rose by 25 percent. The rising rate of cars and fuel prices have far surpassed Campbell’s soup, a bellwether of staple food economics. Even the price for mattresses, where one might be inclined to recline, hoping to forget about all this, has skyrocketed.

Have you ever tried to run up a downward-descending escalator? That escalator is the current state of economics. We’re all running hard to keep up, but getting nowhere.

The high cost of living is upon us.

The uneven, up-down, zigzag floors, walls and ceilings of a funhouse are just that—fun—for awhile. It’s a relief to come out the other end, having survived the intractable and dizzying balancing act. But when will this economic funhouse finally settle down? The cost of living is skyrocketing.

I prepared myself for my customary morning walk on Friday, Good Friday, to be exact, the Friday before Easter. I doused myself with deodorant in the off-chance that Joe would want to chat. I often meet him mid-stride on my walks, as I quietly lurch down my familiar back streets. Joe likes to hail me from across the street. It took Joe several months to learn my name. For many weeks, he christened me with the name, “Frank.” I get that a lot. Upon introducing myself, I’m often mistakenly called Frank, perhaps because I mispronounce my own name. “Frank” comes out much more distinctly than “Craig,” which I myself sometimes choke upon, getting stuck somewhere around my tonsils, the place in the gullet reserved for salt water gargling. “Frank” seems a much more straightforward, tongue-forward appellation.

After several dozen more exercise walks, I finally trained Joe to learn my real name. Now I get, “Hi, Greg.” Never mind. His intent is good. My next task is training him to discern the difference between a “G” and a “C.”

Anyway, Joe is a retired school teacher who cares for grandchildren on occasion and walks his dog with religious fervor. There used to be two dogs on his leash, but last year the golden retriever perished quite suddenly in its sleep after being diagnosed with cancer. How do I know this? Joe freely invites me into his world to share the trivia in his life. In some way, I am gratified to be trusted with the rigors of life by this one-time stranger. He lays out a welcome mat into his world.

On this day, this Good Friday, while chatting curbside with Joe, I suddenly realized that I had not paused my Apple Watch exercise timer for today’s discourse interlude. So I attempted to gently drift downstream away from Joe, despite his attempts to close the growing gap between us.

I lurched and forged ahead, leaving Joe to ponder the correct pronunciation of my name, and determined to mark my exercise miles and minutes. The late fitness guru, Jack LaLanne would be proud.

Abruptly, mid-stride in my exercise brain haze, I half-stuttered a step, lurching sideways like a crab skittering from a codfish. A full step would have landed me directly upon the remains of a rabbit, car-flattened. This bit of brown fur was once a beautiful creation. I lingered over it in awe and consternation.

It was laid open, a beautiful handiwork of its Creator, dissected by an automobile tire. It was still a thing of beauty, but a Picasso re-arranged structure it was. The parts were there, but not in the originally-intended design.

Why did this rabbit meet his demise on my exercise street? Why on Good Friday, just two days before Easter? Was it some sort of omen? The implication was obvious—could it indeed be the Easter Bunny? A horrific thought.

My Good Friday Bunny soon disappeared from the roadway. The next day, during my walk, he was but a flattened pelt with most of the fur missing. And the following day he was gone, nowhere to be found. Surely, he had not been raised on Easter Day, this Easter Rabbit. No, indeed, surely not. But the irony was not lost on me, his coincidental death on Good Friday and disappearance two days later—contrasted with the incarnate God-made-flesh, the real Easter Hero who perished on Good Friday and was resurrected on Easter, two days later.

These days, as we all know, it costs a lot just to stay alive. We know something of the high cost of living with each visit to the grocery store or fill-up at the gas station.

When our friend, Mr. Rabbit, tragically met the Goodyear tire while crossing the road that day, he experienced the ultimate high cost of living.

But the alternative Easter narrative is the one we will to choose to remember. It’s the one in which, on that triumphant Easter morning, there was offered a permanent, never-ending solution for the high cost of living.

Just Grow a New One

I laid down my gardening tools, sat on my haunches, and watched the torso-less green and tan lizard tail twitch on the still, brown mulch. Slower and slower it convulsed until several minutes later it lay still, convinced finally that reassembly to its body was not forthcoming, and no further electro-nerve impulses would be sent its way.

“Ah, it’ll grow a new one,” I mused, half-pretending that it was not I who had inadvertently severed said lizard body from its tail with a power hedge trimmer. In fact, I know not whether all lizards or only some lizards can re-grow various missing parts.

Too bad humans cannot re-grow body parts; such ability would have found useful service for Grandfather Axel’s right index finger, or at least much of it, down to the middle joint. Grabbing severed finger with his other hand, Axel tried to re-attach it himself, jamming and ramming it onto the remaining finger stub without success. I’ve no doubt that the finger actually gave him no hope—no slow-motion twitching and thrashing about like the aforementioned lizard tail that I had sat to observe. Still, onward he jammed, until reality eventually set in. The severed finger would not revive.

What was left after his unfortunate power saw incident was a stub, a stub that years later, and for many years thereafter, Axel would poke into my abdomen at mealtime with exceeding encouragement, deeply stub-prodding as if he could discern slight voids where food ought to be.

“Ah, there,” he would declare, “There’s just enough room there for another slice of tomato and a meatball or two!” I would eagerly down the tomato and meatballs to fill the gap.

I, also, possess an injured right index finger, though my injury pales next to that which Axel suffered at the cruelty of the power saw. My own injury is due to an errant softball hurtling toward my head. Just in time, my hand, and the tip of my extended index finger in particular, shielded my face. The resulting lifelong souvenir is a fingertip that can no longer point straight. To point in a desired direction, I must purposefully aim it slightly up and to the left. Otherwise, giving directions to a traveler might result in a trip to Chicago instead of Milwaukee.

“Just go that way,” I point, “you can’t miss it.”

“Excuse me, which way?”

Twenty centuries ago, the first Catholic pope, who possessed no medical certifications, amputated an ear. Saint Peter and his companions, in the solitude of an olive garden, were suddenly set upon by a band of religious legalists. Under duress, Peter drew his sword and swung it, amputating the ear of one of the intruders. Malchus, now earless, happened to be the slave of the Jewish high priest, and a member of the party sent to arrest Jesus. Not a good thing to happen.

Jesus, the ultimate Primary Care Physician, would have none of the violence. Picture Jesus picking the bloody ear up off the ground, brushing off any olive residue, and reattaching it. Unlike my Grandpa Axel’s attempted finger reinstatement, Jesus’ reattachment held fast, a very good thing for both Malchus and Peter.

It’s reasonable to seek attachment in a chaotic world. Detachment from meaningful purpose and the people and things we love is not easy, and reattachment is not always possible. Sometimes, what we need most is a loving, stubby finger poke to the stomach and to hear, “Hey, I made it. So will you. You’ve got room for more.”

Virus Diaries: Uprooted

It began as a routine trek to retrieve the garbage cans from the street in front of our house. I could have left them there for a bit longer. But a good citizen am I, and mindful of the Good Neighbor reputation I am advancing.

Trudging down the drive, garbage can trailing behind, why not pick a few weeds on the way, weeds sprouted after recent rains, weeds whose miserable greedy roots suck my moisture from my nutrients from my soil in my garden. Pathetic chlorophyll freeloaders, posing among the properly planted and well-cultivated, invaders among my master-planned hybrid specimens.

I plucked one final garden-invading fiend. I thought I did. But it pulled back, hard. I yanked again, and again met unexpected resistance for so small a green growth. The final pull wrested loose its hold upon the soil, and its naked root danced in the air. I relished that this thing, like a hooked trout, would gasp and fade away.

But wait. The frail roots descended into an unexpected pod, split open like a bean exposed to moisture. This excavated thing was not a weed. Instead, I had uprooted a baby tree.

I felt a sudden guilt, the guilt that comes when a life is aborted. This thing was meant for a long and sturdy life, a life that I had destroyed.

Many years ago and quite by chance, I came across a high school friend at a bus station in Kalamazoo. Her youthful, carefree high school face had devolved into a lined, worn mask. She explained that she had had an abortion, and had never since fully recovered. Uprooting a life takes its toll.

And there lay my baby tree, uprooted. It was meant for grand things: nourishment for bugs and birds, shade for beasts and joy for two-legged guests. And seeds to birth new generations.

Limp and frail, I held its tiny trunk and naked roots in my hand. I met God’s creation, this tiny tree, in my front yard—now the vanquisher and the vanquished. I uprooted the tree, and, I suppose, it uprooted a bit of me.

Virus Diaries: Finding Fingal

(front row, first on left—with all ten brothers and sisters and parents)

This week, I’ve enjoyed spending time with my 140-year old grandfather. He immigrated to this country in 1891, when he was 29. Swedish-accented Fingal quickly hopscotched to Alaska in his quest for gold. And find it he did—mining enough gold to become a very wealthy Swedish immigrant.

Aged 140, I paused to let my grandfather gather himself for his story’s next chapter.

Fingal invested his new-found riches in Washington’s blossoming Yakima Valley. He bought up every small business that was available: grocery, hardware, dry cleaners, all the essential businesses, and hundreds of acres of prime land, ready for soon-arriving irrigation. And so, Fingal’s wealth grew.⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀

Until, that is, his unscrupulous, cheating small business managers realized Fingal had no business acumen. They overwhelmed his unsophisticated Swedish education, reducing his burgeoning empire to a fiscal nightmare. He salvaged some farming acreage, his lone investment left standing. He planted apple orchards, retreating to the lone farm house where he raised his family, including my mother, Dagmar.

Actually, I never met my grandfather. He died on August 16, 1945, just three months after my parents married on the front porch of the farm house. He arose from his bed for the last time for their wedding vows, six years before my birth. So the time spent with my 140-year old Grandfather this week has been virtual, with the help of ancestry.com.

During days of seclusion, there are stories surrounding us, closer than ever. We may be housed or virtually connected with family and friends whose stories we have never heard. It could be the perfect time to refresh ourselves with their life stories.

Tomorrow, during these homebound virus-afflicted days, I will return to my family archival photo and slide-scanning project, a project which I have conducted for many months. There, through pictures, I will again virtually meet up with Grandfather Fingal, the grandfather I never met.

Virus Diaries: The Toilet

During these global virus days, we are captives within our abodes. I have never asked myself, “Given the plague, where would I prefer to hole up?” We have already answered this question. We are holed up where we are holed up.⠀⠀

I am fortunate, protecting myself in the 1,600 square foot home that I share with my wife. Now that my field of vision is suddenly reduced, all around me in this household are curiosities that, in a larger world, might go unnoticed.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Take our toilet—no, don’t take our toilet! Were our world larger, proportioned as it used to be, I would need to anticipate my toileting needs away from the house. At Lowes Hardware—ah, yes, down the corridor at the back, on the left. Three urinals and four stalls await me. Our grocery store has one modest toileting compartment per gender, semi-hidden near the back, as if preserving it for employees only, nonetheless it is adequate enough for the task, or tasks, at hand.⠀⠀

My homebound toileting needs are now conveniently served just down the hallway; I have no need for an outside substitute in this giant virus-infested world. I enter the chamber, and the 12-volt motion-activated light invites me to safely stand or sit, as my needs may require. Regardless, I am welcomed by a non-judgmental porcelain creation of exquisite industrial design, hanging, as if perched, mounted directly on the toilet wall, defying gravity, for no part of this appliance touches the polished tile floor beneath. It’s a thing of cleanable genius, a World’s Fair-worthy sculpted beauty that I admire several times each day. Enlarged to gigantic proportions, it would make a wondrous waterslide.

Its other toileting convenience places it above a modest “Ford-level” appliance: the dual-sized wall-mounted push buttons release either minor or high-volume torrents depending upon the demand. But make no mistake, my ceramic friend is no competition for a “Bugatti-level” bidet-enhanced instrument whose performance flushes away all contenders.