The Calm

Stephen and I have been early risers for the last week or so...but today (a holiday!) he slept till almost 8 a.m. I feel like I could run a mile! Or at least a few yards.

More than getting a decent night's sleep, the 25 minutes I spent with Stephen this morning have calmed my soul and given me a bank of good feelings to draw on over the next week. I heard him get up and go down the hall to the living room, so I went to see what he was doing. He was on the couch, and so I took a chance and stretched out beside him. Sometimes he's receptive to that kind of closeness, but sometimes he's not.

Today, he was. He reached down and pulled a quilt over us as I put my arm around him. He snuggled close to me and I felt his tiny hand circle around me. He even patted my back briefly. So there we lay, two contented souls in the still-dim room, watching the sun begin to brighten the spaces between the vertical blinds.

After a few minutes I began to expect him to pop up, or push me away...but he didn't. He laid his head against me in that timeless "baby and mama" way. He lay so still I wondered if he could hear my heartbeat and felt comforted by it. Every so often he would tilt his face up to mine, pull my face toward his, and give me a "kiss" (smooshing his lips against my cheek). I concentrated on the little details that resonate so perfectly with a mother's heart: the smoothness of his hair against my cheek, the faint smell of shampoo, the tiny bump of his nose, just visible when I looked down at him, the seriousness of his dark green eyes as he looked deeply into mine. For those quiet moments, there was no autism, no stress, no sadness. Just one small pool of silence in what is almost sure to be a typically chaotic day, but it'll stay in my memory for a long, long time.

Twenty-five minutes out of twenty-four hours, but it was packed with meaning and love. We moved quickly from that idyllic state to a giggle and "To-as James competter?" (Thomas & James on the computer?) - just that quickly it was over and he was everyday Stephen again, doing his computer game and flapping away. That brings a smile too, but...it's a different one filled with a bit of sadness and resignation.

For now, though, I will look back on those early morning moments and treasure them. Their rarity makes them indescribably special - I got a glimpse inside Stephen and saw the boy without the shadow of autism. I feel humbled and very, very thankful.