Last Lecture
I believe that I have mentioned here previously that my 14-year old son has Asperger’s Syndrome (high functioning autism). His developmental delays are manifested as social and emotional delays; he is very bright, but his social skills are closer to those of an 8-year old. His emotional delays are both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that he is often unaware of how other people are responding to him. Sure he notices the blatant teasing, but the more subtle stuff, I think, just goes right past him. It is a curse, though, in that I do not have a really strong emotional bond with my older son; not for lack of trying, but because it’s hard for him to connect with folks emotionally.
This fact was hit home last week. One night, I happened to glance at a paper he was writing for homework. It started out something along the lines of, “I think the Last Leture was a good book…” Apparently, they had been reading the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch in his class over the past couple of weeks.
Now intellectually, my son knows that I have pancreatic cancer and he also knows that Randy Pausch died from PC. I do not know if he has made the connection between those two realities. Moreover, I offered to give him my insight, if for no other reason, to discuss how Randy Pausch had inspired me to write this blog and work to help raise awareness about pancreatic cancer. He just was not interested. I’m a little sad that he would not want to take advantage of this opportunity for us to bond.
However, I am able to take a step back and recognize that he is behaving completely consistently with who he is. It’s all about adjusting expectations. Perhaps he will be interested in talking about this at a later date. Until then, we’ll just keep on keeping on!
Merle