Essay in the Whitefish Review

(The following essay started as a post I wrote in 2007 on my old blog From the Mountaintop to the Valley Floor and was just published in the December edition of the Whitefish Review. And yes, you should never reread your published work b/c you will still want to edit the crap out of it.)

It may just be a sentence. A few innocent words that cloak your unspoken fears. Something as simple as: “I’d like to add another goal to Elias’s IEP.  I’d like to see him use more spontaneous speech patterns instead of repeating … to initiate conversation….”
    The words grow more menacing, and pull from the deep when echoed by a second therapist the next day: “When asked what a cow says, he answered moo; but when asked who says moo he didn’t know …Elias seems to have a number of memorized phrases that he uses to communicate…. Echolalic…. similar to children with autism…”
    And there it is.
    No longer hidden. My fears dressed up in someone else’s words. 
    Autism.
    And all I can think about is Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man. A lone individual sitting in a metal chair by a card table, repeating stock phrases as he waits to watch Judge Wopner on TV.  Deficit blinds me.  Deficient is all I can see. 
    Until two goats walk down Doris Street.

I just happen to be looking out the window when they saunter past. “Elias, the goats are outside,” I say, assuming Laura is taking them for a walk. Laura, who we once called “The Goat Lady,” lives on the corner of Doris and 34th and pens her two pet goats in her backyard. She often walks them around the neighborhood on retractable dog leashes. The goats have lived here in this part of Anchorage for longer than we, and the neighbors both love and hate the garden grazers.
    Elias likes the goats, so we regularly walk down to see them and say: Baaah.

At four years of age, Elias cannot stand up by himself.  He uses a walker to travel from our house, down the gradual hill, and to the goats’ pen about six houses away.  Laden with vegetable peels and wilted lettuce greens, Elias will lift his walker through the grass and over the old weathered log in order to get close enough to feed them. The doctors say his cerebral palsy will never go away, but his body will adjust as he learns new ways to move. We have already seen an improvement with his vision, although he still tests as legally blind. Elias doesn’t know there is anything wrong with him.

As I watch the goats walk past I realize they aren’t on leashes but just sauntering down the street on their own. I pick up Elias and carry him out the front door to the stroller so I can run down and tell Laura.
    No car. No answer when I knock. I knock on her tenant’s door and wake-up the disheveled young woman. She shows no interest in helping me round up the goats but does give me Laura’s cell number. I reach Laura as she’s walking into a noon meeting, her car in the shop. “I can try to get them,” I say.  “I got Elias with me, but we’ll try.”
     “I owe you one,” she says and tells me where to find their leashes.
    I find the goats at the other end of our street, eating brown grass in the side yard of an apartment building. I park Elias on the edge of the yard and carry the leashes towards Tiger and Rebecca.  (What else would you name pet goats?) An older woman watches the goats from the basement window. She smiles at me as I approach, then closes the curtain.
    Clipping the leashes on their collars proves to be the easy part. Convincing them to leave their new “field,” not so. 
    “Goats….goats….goats…,” Elias waves his arms in the air.
    “Come on Tiger! Rebecca! Walk!” I cluck my tongue and rub my fingers together. “Come on!” They look up at me with mouths full of grass and take a few steps in my direction. When their hooves reach the road, they stop. “Come on Goats! Walk! Come on! Here we go!”
    I pull.
    They pull.
    And we came to a standstill on the edge of the street.

Autism.
I need to say the diagnosis out loud.
Autism. 
Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Asperger’s Syndrome. 
Autism.
Hard to say.

A young couple drives past, necks craned, careful to avoid hitting us. The man parks at a duplex a few houses down.  “Nice goats,” he says as he climbs out of the driver’s seat.
    “They aren’t mine. They escaped. I’m just trying to get them back in their pen.”
He  smiles and nods.  The woman waves as they walk up their steps.
    “Walk… walk goats…walk,” Elias says as he kicks his legs and waves his arms, laughing. And as if following Elias, the goats take slow steps towards home.  I push my son in his stroller with my left hand, while holding both leashes with my right. We can do this, I think.

It was by the goats’ pen that I first saw Elias pick up his walker to cross from the pavement to the high grass. And it wasn’t long until he learned how to lift the metal rolling contraption high enough to step over the old weathered log. There was a time when we thought he would never walk. He didn’t start crawling until he was two. It is still hard for him to find his balance when he is not holding on to something, but you should see him pick his feet up to ride his walker down steep hills.

An SUV stops at the stop sign behind us; the driver rolls down the window and says: “Hi Tiger. Hi Rebecca!”
    Both goats pull me back towards her car.
    The woman with big blond hairs sticks her arm out, “Hi cutie pies!  How are you?” She turns to me and smiles. “I like to bring them my scraps.”
    “They aren’t mine,” I say.  “I’m just trying to get them back into their pen.”
    “Good luck!” She waves and turns up the steep hill onto 32nd, towards the main road. The larger of the two goats, Tiger, decides to follow. When he puts his weight into pulling, I cannot get him to budge. So I park Elias’s stroller and attach Rebecca’s leash to the handle to free both hands.  As I tug on Tiger’s leash, I hear the stroller wheels move across the pavement behind me. I turn to see the smaller goat taking Elias for a ride. I lunge for the stroller and stand in the middle of the street splayed.

I wake up from anesthesia in a surgery recovery room with a doctor by my side.
    “Where’s my baby?”
    “He’s in the New Born Intensive Care Unit.”
    I look for my husband. “Where’s Nick?”
    “He’s with the baby.”
    “Is he ok?”
    Born at twenty-five weeks.
    A birth weight of one pound and twelve ounces.
    Apgar score: 0.
    The woman in blue scrubs, with honest eyes, says, “He’s alive—but I can’t tell you he’s going to survive.”

Who the hell can help me? We know our neighbors on both sides but I can’t knock on either door. Between Lupus and old age, I can’t ask them to join this fight. It is me and the goats, with Elias as my spectator, all giggles and, “Goats…goats…walk goats!!!!!” 
    Out of pity, perhaps, or boredom, or good will, or darned luck, Tiger finally cooperates, and both goats walk in the direction of their house. As we make our way down Doris Street, I hold their leashes in my right hand and push Elias’s stroller with my left. Again, I begin to think, we can do it.  It’s possible. We make it all the way down the hill, a hundred yards or so to Laura’s backyard, but as soon as Tiger and Rebecca see the pen they change their footing and drag me away from the gate.  I have to let go of Elias. 

    Since I can’t figure out how to lock the retractable leashes, and the cord is longer than I want it to be, I wrap Tiger’s leash around my hands a few times to pull the large goat closer.  As I do this, Tiger’s legs get wrapped up in the cord, and for a moment I know either he is going to break a leg or I am going to lose a finger.  For a moment, I’m scared that what began as an unexpected break from the norm will break me.  That the cost of fully living will be greater than I can bear.
    “Help,” I say, out loud, from that place between laughter and tears, “Help….Help!” Not loud enough to be a true cry for help but loud enough for me to acknowledge that I am in no way in control of this situation.
    My body relaxes and I stop pulling. Tiger snorts and shakes his head, and then he leads us right past the gate and into the pen.  Elias smiles and kicks his skinny legs from his throne: “Walk, goats, walk!”

Comments

[Sara]

how incredibly awesome - both the story/writing, and the publishing :) Congrats Christie. And thanks for being a continued presence of such wisdom and insight - you continually help me regain my perspective and "balance" in this parenting journey.

[fleming]

LOVED it. Just LOVED it. Thanks for making me laugh today..and think.

[Ginna]

What an amazing story! I'm so proud of you for submitting and for being published. Hope the winter is going well - days are already starting to seem longer here, & I hope you are finding the same!

[jessica]

write the damn book so I can keep reading. . .
love and miss you.

[Shelley]

Very impressive...I love the two stories being fitted together.

[Jenna]

Hi Elias

My name is Jenna and I came across your site. U are a brave courageous, strong and determined fighter. U are a beautiful precious gift, and a special earthly angel. U are a brave warrior, smilen champ and an inspirational hero. I love it when people sign my guestbook. I have a rare life threatening disease, developmental delays and many other diagnosis.http://www.miraclechamp.webs.com