We're used to "If you see something, say something" as a way and means to keep ourselves from getting blown up by the bad guys.
Fine advice, but it's time for the world to learn how to use that same set of directions in more ways than just that one.
The world has to wake up to something it may not want to see, something it may be afraid to see, and that something is:
Our world is teeming with Avonte Oquendos.
You don't need me to spew the statistics, look them up if you haven't heard. And here comes the hard part, that part that we really don't want to think about:
The Avonte Oquendos can't go it alone. There's no luxury of "the world is my oyster...I am a rock, I am an island...hurray for rugged independence...manifest destiny...she's leaving home, bye bye" for these people. They need us to protect them, to surround them with our care, because we are quite literally all they have.
Talk about an inconvenient truth.
Because I'm not just talking about just those of us who are "in the know," those of us who rolled the dice, had our babies, and landed one or more times on the space marked "Autism." Because if you aren't that parent, you're that grandparent, that uncle or aunt or cousin, that coworker, that boss, that employee, that best friend, that sister, that brother. No one is left out. If you care about anybody, you care about this. It's a logical fact. It's the law of probability. The numbers are growing and growing and growing at a rate that you could almost call ludicrous if there was anything funny about it.
So if you see something, say something.
"See what?" you might ask. So many signs to consider. Again, take a minute, Candy Crush will still be there, a quick Google search will tell you plenty. Maybe it's a boy or a girl, anywhere from tiny to way taller than you, in his or her own little world, flapping hands, spinning a string, flicking a pencil, making funny noises that sound like crowing or barking or meowing, maybe spouting rhymes or lines from movies to no one in particular, spinning a wheel on a toy alone on a sidewalk, rocking back and forth rhythmically, or spinning in circles, looking like no one is minding him, or minding her. If that person is in any stage of undress, there's another good sign. If he or she doesn't seem at all responsive when spoken to, that could also be a clue. That's not all I can tell you, but it's a start.
He or she could could be any race, color, or creed, and any age. He or she is likely to be exceedingly beautiful...although I may be saying that because over the past five or so years I haven't seen or met one autistic person that I haven't found to be exceedingly beautiful.
Maybe you're not seeing exactly what I described, but you just have a feeling....something is off...it nags at you that this looks like a person that shouldn't be on his own, or on her own, without a caregiver. That's enough to maybe observe a little more and follow your gut.
If you're nervous about approaching the person, if you're not comfortable, if he or she is bigger than you and you worry you could be hurt, fair enough. Most of us have phones, just call 911, mention what you're seeing and that you wonder if the person might need help, that from what you've learned about autism, you think this person might be affected, could someone come and check it out.
If you're wrong, no harm, no foul, nothing to be sheepish about because, guess what, you've still done the world a service...because if you feel the need to act on something like this, maybe people you know will start thinking along those lines too, you don't know what your sphere of influence is, you don't know how far you ripple out.
If you're right, you've saved a life and brought joy back to people who were in danger of losing a piece of theirs forever.
Maybe you're like me and you can't stop thinking of this boy from the news, seeing his face in your mind, his family's faces, the brother we've seen organizing searches, the mother whose face I wish I could stop seeing, but I can't.
If you believe in angels, in big, powerful kickass angels, like Michael the Archangel, think about him shielding Avonte, protecting him. Can't hurt, might help, what do we know? "More things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Shakespeare says, and honestly, he's terribly smart about things. And also, just for the record, we're all Horatio. So just for good measure, call in anyone you can think of, anyone you're used to talking to, and whatever or whoever you call it. It doesn't care what you call it.
God...Jesus...Jeshua...Yeshua...Moses...Kwan Yin...The Blessed Mother...The Prophet Mohammed....the Buddha...God the Father...Krishna...The Magdalene...The Divine Creator...Your Powerful, Powerful Grandmother in the spirit realm...the Soul of Mother Theresa....John Paul II...Saint Anthony (if he can help find things why not people)....Saint Francis...Saint Jude...the Legions of Angels...the Elementals...the Greatest Good and Highest Joy of All Concerned...All That Is...the Light...the Dude...the Holy Spirit...Love Actually.
I think we've pretty much all been lost. We've all needed to bring in the "big guns." We've all been pulled out of the abyss by something we couldn't exactly see or hear or smell or taste, whether we want to believe or admit it or not.
While I may have gone through a nasty bout of premature aging during those fifteen minutes or so, "Scared Shoeless" had a happy ending on that quiet summer day. But having been through just that tiny, minuscule fraction of what Avonte's family has been enduring for weeks upon weeks, my heart can't really sleep well. I wake up every day and hope to hear the news his family prays for with all they've got.
I don't know what has happened to this boy. But somebody has to know.
The thing is, Avonte Oquendo can't talk for himself. We have to keep talking for him. Please keep talking. To yourselves and each other and to anything seen or unseen that you believe in. It can do no harm, and it could change the world.
Please please please. And thank you.
1 comment:
Amen, Sister. Amen.
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