Autism: The Father Factor

I’m multi-tasking this morning, listening in on the IACC workgroup conference call while having my piano tuned.

Bob, the piano dude, arrived an hour or so ago. I went through my usual spiel about my beautiful piano.

Twenty-five years old. Kawai. Nope. Not a baby grand. Just a small grand.

It was my music-loving dad’s...Beloved.

I know. I know. I’m a grownup. I shouldn’t be so damned sentimental.

It doesn’t matter how long I outlive him, it still pains me to talk about him that way.

In the past tense.

I want him to be current. I want him to be present. I want him to tell Bob, the piano dude, what to do.

Bob is polite as I show him the cryptic note scratched inside the piano as well as the yellowing piece of graph paper I keep inside the bench.

Instructions from my dad, the original Jack. He tuned it himself. Ever the engineer, he liked to get under the hood. Tinker around. Figure it out.

So Bob is working. Attempting to tune. Unknowingly attempting to make something of my past-tense dad feel present.

Against the backdrop of octaves and intervals, I listen in to the IACC workgroup … struggling, discussing … trying to put their arms around the present … the future of autism research.

Trying to boil the ocean. Attempting to figure it all out.

And I hear the ever-focused dads on the call. Peter Bell. Mark Blaxill. Pushing, Questioning. Thinking about their kids.

Working I know, for their Beloved.

Thank God for the dads.

I really love the way Jesse Mojica expressed it in today’s New York Daily News:

"Though my son has not said a word to me in more than seven years, he speaks volumes to my spirit.

Many people ask if I have any regrets since Adam's diagnosis and I respond to all by saying, 'Just one: That I did not have Adam, Miguel, and my wife, Ana, in my life sooner.'

I am a man who has been blessed countless times over by the love of these beautiful angels. Together, we will continue to grow as a family and advocate alongside our friends within the autism community as long as it takes."

Music to my ears Jesse. Music to my ears..