Outside the circle

We've forgotten. We've forgotten the days in San Francisco, for example, when TH was 3 and 4 and 5 years old and every visit to every playground had us on the edge, watching his every move for...That Moment when he freaked out some other child through a strange, prima facie antagonistic behavior, like waving a hand an inch from the child's face, responding with a bizarre non-sequitur to a child's perfectly reasonable overtures, running away and vocalizing like a chicken if a child approached.

How we managed to forget that, I'm not sure. But we have. Had.

TH has been in his current school now for three years. The kids know him. They know him especially well now that we explained something about TH using the Circle of Friends program. TH is as anxiety free there as he's capable of being. He still vocalizes and contorts his face and flaps his hands and does other things that draw attention at school, in restaurants, in church, but for the most part, we'd totally forgotten about how worried we always were when he entered into a new social milieu because it's been so long since we've done that.

The first two weeks of summer have reminded us.

We go to our neighborhood pool. Sometimes, there are kids TH knows. Those are good days, although he often will drift away from playing with them to play on his own. In his green goggles with his big head, he vocalizes loudly, the loudest child in the pool. But he's having a great time. That is, unless he's there among only strangers and some child approaches him and TH responds to the child's overtures with a bizarre nonsequitur or by streaking away through the water, making animal noises. Some children are merely bemused and back away slowly. Some take offense and try to engage TH in an exchange of insults. Unfortunately--or maybe it is fortunate--TH's responses to these insults are so enigmatic that the other child likely feels on the losing end, at the least for being unable to figure out what the hell TH just said.

Vacation bible camp this week handed us a few more reminders. Yesterday, TH had an experience straight from the pages of his personal history. Things were said. His made no sense, other children took offense, started calling him "stupid" and other things. This morning, we came to the final-day breakfast to watch a slide show of the kids while everyone snacked on muffins and juice. I watched in gut-wrenching pain as one child literally approached the table where TH sat alone, started to put down his plate, saw who was sitting there, and quickly decamped to a different table. I watched the slide show, the only picture of our older son one of him, sitting on the floor, long legs up in a frog posture, long-fingered hands covering his face, limbs all angled and akimbo, hiding from the camera.

Meanwhile, at two other tables full of happy, chatting children, the kids laughed and clapped to see themselves, talked with each other, behaved as "typical" children do. Our sons, Dubya and TH, sat side by side, alone for a long time at a table for eight, eating grapes and pigs-in-a-blanket, laughing together, apparently oblivious to their obvious isolation. Thank God they have each other.

TH has been doing so well in school on the heels of Circle of Friends. Academically, he's skyrocketed, probably in part because with his lower anxiety, he can actually function. He has friends, kids who get him and like him. But that was a three-year path to this sort of acceptance and understanding. These events of early summer are a clear reminder that when TH steps outside the circle, it's like he's stepped back in time.

As have we. Yes, we remember it now. In an echo of Apocalypse Now, I want to make it a mantra: Never get out of the circle. Do not get out of the circle.

Life does not, however, offer us the option of circumscribing existence in that way. With these fresh reminders come new questions: How do we equip him for life outside of the circle?