Autism Issues
Eric's Way: Not a Flying Elephant
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Mar 31, 2009 - 10:09:40 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - I've loved the old children's movie Dumbo for many years. Dumbo is a little elephant with enormous ears. In fact, his ears are so big that he trips over them all the time, producing all sorts of problems. Dumbo is mocked about his ears, and snubbed when his clumsiness embarrasses the other elephants. But one day Dumbo discovers that his ears are large enough to act as wings. Upon realizing that Dumbo can fly, his only friend cries, "The very things that held you down are going to carry you up!" As the movie ends, Dumbo is rich, famous, and admired by all, performing in the circus as "the world's only flying elephant."

I remember watching the movie when my son Eric was a newborn, sympathetic tears rolling down my cheeks as the other elephants ridiculed Dumbo. Couldn't they see that he was beautiful? His big ears were just different, not ugly! I would sing the lullaby that his mother sang in the movie to my own adorable baby, little knowing that this movie would become more than just a story to me in a few short years.

Three years later Eric, by now diagnosed with severe autism, became fascinated with Disneyland's Dumbo The Flying Elephant Ride. Every time we went to Disneyland we had to ride it over and over. In those days the ride had a motto painted on its top, "Believe-and Soar." As we rode again and again I'd pray, "God, I believe that you can do anything. Please make Eric soar."

I bought Eric an enormous stuffed Dumbo for his bed. He never cuddled it, but sometimes I did, and prayed again that Eric would one day soar, like Dumbo. I also prayed that one day he'd smile, he'd speak, he'd cuddle stuffed animals, and most importantly, that he'd tell me that he loved me. And do you know what? One day he did all of these things. In fact, the first unprompted sentence Eric ever spoke, at age 4, was, "I love you, Mommy."

One day Eric soared, too. I sobbed with joy as I listened to him give the valedictorian address at his high school graduation three years ago. He's been an honor student at his top ranked university each year since, and he no longer meets the doctors' diagnostic criteria for autism. It seems that the sky is the limit for the young man who was once a mute, unsmiling little boy with vacant green eyes.

I've thought about Dumbo many times since the summer we rode the Dumbo ride over and over again. One day I realized that the reason Dumbo tripped over his ears was because he wasn't born to be a walking elephant at all. Dumbo was born to fly. Once I understood this, I began to think of Dumbo's story as a parable for Eric's life, and began to pray that his challenge might one day turn out to be the source of a unique ability, just as Dumbo's had.

Like Dumbo, Eric often didn't meet the expectations of other adults or his teachers. He was teased and sometimes rejected by his peers because of his differences. His doctors talked about his "neurological deficits" as if the essential truth about Eric was that he was lacking necessary qualities, which had to be made up somehow if he was going to have a meaningful life. But the essence of what made Dumbo, Dumbo didn't lie in what he was unable to do. Dumbo would never have flown if his ears hadn't been long enough for him to trip over in the first place. The tripping was a necessary stage in his development into the elephant he was born to be. He was never defective or inferior. He was just embarked upon a different path, born for a different kind of life.

I believe that this is true for all autism spectrum children. Granted, probably none of them will become rich or famous one day because of their differences, as Dumbo did. But each one is unique, and the contribution that each makes to our world will be, like Dumbo's, because of their uniqueness, not in spite of it. This is true, even if their main contribution is teaching the rest of us the joy that comes from loving and caring for those who cannot care for themselves. Because of this, our focus as parents must be on so much more than simply trying to help our children to be more like everyone else's.

If Dumbo was a child today, his loving mother would surely have arranged for plastic surgery, to make his ears look more like the other elephants'. But if she had, Dumbo would never have made the distinctive contribution that he was born to make. Please understand that I'm not saying that we should just leave autism spectrum children as they are, and not work to equip them for the most functional and rewarding adult life that they are capable of. I committed myself to finding all the assistance I could to help Eric to become all that he was born to be. But I also believed that Eric was born just as he was for a purpose, and that my role wasn't primarily to "fix" him, but to help him realize his full potential as the unique individual he was born to be.

I don't see Eric's challenges primarily as the consequence of a genetic mistake, a birth accident, or a vaccine injury, although any one of those things may indeed have happened to him. But God designed his body and planned the course of his life in detail long before I ever dreamed of having a son. So if Eric did indeed suffer brain damage during his birth or from a vaccination, there was a purpose for it, since everything we experience in our lives works together for our good. This precious truth comforted to my heart during the dark early years when I struggled to believe that God was doing good things in our lives, even though I couldn't see them yet.

Once Eric was diagnosed with autism I hit the books, seeking to understand as much as I could about how he was different so that I could help him grow to his fullest potential. I left my psychiatric practice and joined Eric in his early intervention program, learning techniques for teaching him language and other skills. I also asked God to show me how to help him become all that he was created to be.

Life was pretty chaotic at first! But slowly, order began to emerge from the chaos. Our mute preschooler, who tested in the moderately retarded range at his first assessment, grew slowly in his understanding and use of language. His IQ score rose remarkably, too. Our obsessive little boy learned to accept the word, "No", and turn from what fascinated him to obey our instructions. Our anxious preteen, who got hysterical when he couldn't control what was going on around him, slowly grew in self-control. Our angry teenager gradually grew to understand that God designed his body the way he did for a reason, even as he struggled with the desire for acceptance and understanding from his peers.

Today Eric, who had to be taught to speak, has a gift for learning languages and an uncanny knack for imitating foreign accents. Would this talent have developed if he hadn't had to learn our language as a young child? I believe that Eric's talent, like Dumbo's flying, grew out of his differences. As I remember Dumbo's friend's cry, "The very things that held you down are going to carry you up!" I look forward to Eric's future achievements with great hope and confidence.

But real life isn't like the movies, is it? In the movies the clumsy elephant flies. The kid everyone made fun of grows up to be rich and famous. His parents and the girl who believed in him before he "made good" are vindicated for their faith in him. But in real life, people who are born different usually stay different, and most of them don't "live happily ever after."

So when I say that Eric soared, like Dumbo, I don't want to offer an unreal, fairy tale story. He hasn't become "better than normal", and his peers aren't lining up to admire him and learn his secret for success. He still faces challenges in many areas of his life. But together we have blazed a unique path, Eric's way, through a very difficult childhood and adolescence. Now as he faces the future as a young adult, Eric is beginning to discover why he was created so very different from other people. And we both believe that God will do great things, both in and through Eric's life.

LAURA HENDRICKSON, author of Finding Your Child's Way on the Autism Spectrum (Moody Publishers -2009), is a biblical counselor, former psychiatrist, and mother of an adult son. She is a member of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors. www.moodypublishers.com

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