We are leaving today. It was an eventful trip during which we saw our daughter (my stepdaughter) transform from a mother of one to a mother of two; our granddaughter change from a sibling-to-be, to an actual sibling and our grandson age from -2 days old to be more than one week old. Standing I’ve […]
No trouble from me I never wanted to be any trouble. That holdover from my childhood is with me today. The presence of my older brother was confounding enough for my parents. Mike was low-functioning, autistic and non-verbal. It must have been a great shock for them. Even as a child I didn’t want to […]
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 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 […]
I wonder how many times autistic siblings have heard this phrase. Was it just me? I have to admit that when I was growing up, I didn’t hear those words. My Mom wanted me to go out and play with the other kids. I’m sure Dad wanted the same things, but he also reinforced the […]
Have you ever looked at something all the time and, many years later, look at it again and notice something completely different about it? The picture below is an example of that for me. I carved mine, Mom and Dad helped my other brothers with theirs. We always put them on the stoop for Halloween. […]
I think I took this picture of Mike. Pretty good for a kid, although not the traditional type found in a family album. It surprised me when I came across it among the family snaps. Looking at it with today’s eyes, it captures the essence of my relationship with my older brother. There was this […]
