What are the chances that I will have an autistic son or daughter if my brother is autistic? This is a simple question, with no simple answer. I venture to say this is a question on the mind of many siblings. Today, I started looking at the scads of references to see if there is […]
Shortly after 8 PM on April 17, 2013, my granddaughter became a big sister. She had been waiting for this occasion her entire life (except for the first 6 months of it). Usually, Siddy has so much energy, she has to jump up and down in order to dissipate it. But even that was not […]
I’ve been at hospital all day (4.17.13). [Note: I like to post shortly after midnight, so the date on this post is 4.18.13] No baby yet. Siddy is still a Sib-to-Be. I will interview her later in the week after she is an actual sibling. Today’s thoughts are about having children. Dodging a bullet? Full disclosure: my […]
My parents and I returned to my brother Mike‘s group home many times after that first visit. On one notable occasion, I brought my violin. I thought that perhaps if he heard the same sounds that he used to hear at home, maybe something would click. I didn’t think that he would wake up and […]
Like all of you, I am terribly upset by the Boston Marathon bombing. My heart really isn’t in blogging, and I was wracking my brain to think of what to write that would be consistent with my blog’s mission. I had planned to talk about the role music played in my family. Given the healing […]
I enjoyed interviewing my granddaughter yesterday. Within a couple of days, she will become an older sister. As she intimated to me yesterday, she has wanted a baby brother or sister her entire life. She is afraid that she will feel jealous and that she wont know the right things to do to take care […]
I usually write about my brother Michael and my relationship with him. But my 8 1/2 year old granddaughter’s mother will have a baby any day now. On the eve of siblinghood, I asked Sidra her thoughts about becoming a big sister. Jack: How long have you wanted a baby brother or sister? Sidra: 8 […]
A not-quite-ready-for-prime-time story, written shortly after beginning the photo project about my brother, Michael: I just woke up after forty years of living. It was very confusing. These people came to visit me every week. They always brought me the things to eat and took me for walks in the park. I don’t know how […]
In a previous post, I mentioned that I would be skipping around the timeline in my recollections of growing up and trying to understand my older brother. I wrote the following shortly after Mike was placed in permanent housing after the mandated closing of Willowbrook, a large mental institution on Staten Island, NY. First Impressions […]
I wonder if it is a common trait of siblings of the severely handicapped to have a dark sense of humor. Webster defines gallows humor as ”humor that makes fun of a life-threatening, disastrous or terrifying situation.”[1] Disastrous or terrifying might describe experiences of some of us siblings; perhaps some have experienced life-threatening situations as […]
