The waiting room wasn’t too crowded when we got to the Emergency Room at 11AM. She was taken right in and given the appropriate tests for chest pain. Then we sat there in the waiting room: she in the wheelchair and I next to her, within plug-in length of the nearest power outlet. There weren’t […]
Sidra’s birthday Yesterday was my granddaughter’s 9th birthday, her last year of single digits, as I like to say to all 9-year olds. We ‘face-timed’ and her aunties, Nanna and I all crowded around the iPhone to see her show off her ‘adorable’ birthday presents. Siddy is always excited about her birthday. For months before, […]
Photographs lie My first inkling that photographs do not tell the truth came from a conversation with Mom. “Michael never really was like that,” she used to say about some of the old snapshots we would look at now and then. It wasn’t too often, because it was painful for her to remember. There was something […]
My Dad was a theoretical physicist, and was always open to answering any questions that I had. I owe my father a great debt of gratitude for his voracious appetite for life. Some of that rubbed off. I am reminded of him because I just found something interesting in one of my journals from 1993. […]
My search to understand my older brother, Michael, who is autistic, very low functioning, and nonverbal has led me in many different directions. I have read about epistemology, the study of what is knowable; theories of consciousness; anatomy of the brain; principles of neuropsychiatry to get some idea of what could be going on in […]
Michael is my older brother who has never spoken and is autistic and low functioning. He was a patient at Willowbrook, a state mental institution, which used to be on Staten Island, New York, and was home to 6,000 patients. After Willowbrook was shut down for widespread abuse, my brother was placed in a group […]
This picture is from a home movie. I took it from a TV set after the 8mm was transferred to videotape. The movie was made before 1961, since Mike went to Willowbrook about then. My brother Mike is autistic, low functioning and has never spoken. I am pushing Mike on the Irish Mail. The Irish […]
Yesterday, Mom was my guest blogger. She said it was ok to post her e-mail to me in response to my post about memory and my childhood. She said how important it was for my younger brother and me to process the experience of growing up with our autistic, nonverbal and low-functioning brother, Michael. Dad […]
Yesterday, my post was about Willowbrook, the large mental institution on Staten Island, New York, where my older brother was for about 15 years. Michael is autistic, very low functioning and has never spoken. Willowbrook was broken up by court order and the six thousand or so residents were relocated. This took many years to […]
My brother, Michael is autistic, very low functioning and has never spoken. He is about 3 years older than me. I am 4 years older than my younger brother. Our family lived together until Mike was 13 years old. From the time Mike was born, he never progressed. He couldn’t take care of himself and […]
