Loving Autism
“He had a great day.”
Every afternoon the teachers said it. And every afternoon we braced at our own front door — because we knew what a great day cost our son, and we knew what was coming.
Read the first chapter of Before the Storm, free.
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From the first chapter
When the storm comes, my wife goes to him. She gets low. She keeps her voice soft. And she always starts the same way, no matter what he’s just broken, no matter how far gone he is: I love you, Eli. Not “stop.” Not “calm down.” Not “what did you do.”
And while it’s still happening — while his body is still somewhere he can’t control — he cries the same two words, over and over:
“Sorry, Mommy. Sorry, Mommy.”
He apologises during the meltdown. Not after, when it’s over and someone has prompted him. During. From inside it.
It took me far too long to understand what that one word was telling me. A child who is misbehaving does not apologise while he’s doing it.
Who this is for
Before the Storm is the honest, unsentimental and often funny story of one family learning to understand a son who couldn’t always put his experience into words — the meltdowns nobody posts about, the joy nobody warns you about, and the slow work of finally hearing him.
It’s the book I couldn’t find when we needed it: an account of the part of this life that happens behind the front door, written by someone living it, that ends somewhere hopeful without lying to get there.
If you know that front door, this book was written for you.