A Posse Of His Own

It’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and we just spent almost two hours at the park. With the sudden arrival of warm weather, the park is bustling with kids.  Normally, Coleman sticks to a solid routine at the park:  first the red swing, then the tunnel, etc.  But today with all the kids running around, Coleman just wants to watch.  He loves watching kids run and play.  He moves his fingers in front of his face in excitement like a mad scientist, and laughs out loud as they run past him.  “I got you Grace!” one boy yells as he hurls past Coleman and tags the young girl.  “I GOT YOU GRACE!” Coleman echoes, and the boy glances back at him confused, but then runs off again.  Grace then speeds past Coleman in pursuit of the others.  Coleman squeals in delight as she passes.  “Go! Go! ” he yells to her.   I’m standing a few feet behind him just watching it all.  A dad is standing next to me, and he watches Coleman with a smile which makes me happy.  I often feel compelled to tell strangers that Coleman has autism as a means of explaining his peculiar behaviors.  But this dad's smile tells me I don’t have to.  “Ten more minutes guys!” he calls to his kids.  Coleman yells out beside him “Ten more minutes guys!” 

Most days at the park I don’t let Coleman stand around and watch the kids.  “Let’s go on the slide” I say, coaxing him away from his spot toward the slide.  He agrees but as soon as we go down the slide, he runs back to the same spot to watch the kids run by.  But today is the first weekend since late fall that there are a lot of kids at the park.  Over the winter it was pretty much just Coleman and I.  So I let him watch.  Almost the entire time we are there, he watches and laughs.  When we finally walk to the car to head home, Coleman turns to me and says happily, “That was fun!”  I hug and him say “That WAS fun!”

We drive across town and then into our neighborhood where people are out and about on every street.  I wave from my open window, and continue to drive.  As I approach the block before ours, I see a group of kids approaching.  I know immediately who they are:  they are a posse of boys all Coleman’s age.  A few of them I know well.  I stop at the intersection and watch them.  There are seven of them, three on bikes, one on roller blades, and three walking.  One of them has a lacrosse stick and he’s catching a ball from one of the other boys as they saunter along.  They are moving slowly, stopping every few feet, and bantering among themselves.  The one with the lacrosse stick trips off the sidewalk but doesn’t fall and they all laugh.  I can’t hear what is said but whatever it was, they all laugh again in response.  

I stare at them – I can’t help myself.  I’m looking at their clothes, their hair, the way they walk, the way they casually laugh with each other.  Before I know it, all of the happy feelings from our time at the park have silently disappeared and I am left instead with a familiar lump that makes its way up my throat.  I don’t want to but I can’t stop imagining Coleman walking along with them too.  I try not to think about this, but it’s like a flood in my brain that I can’t stop.  I wonder which one of the boys would be Coleman’s bestie. I wonder how he would look in those calf high sports socks that they are all wearing.   I wonder if they are talking about girls yet.  I glance in the rear-view mirror at Coleman.  He is looking out the window at the boys too.  I realize we are not moving and so I start to proceed through the intersection.  As we pass, a few of the boys recognize us and yell “Hi Coleman!!”  I wave and we keep going. 

This is a recurring agony:  seeing typical kids that Coleman would have been friends with, chumming around, doing stuff typical boys his age are doing.  Coleman will never be chumming around in a small posse of his own, laughing with his pals as they walk up the street playing lacrosse.  And not only because he can’t play lacrosse:  because he doesn’t have any friends.   The loneliness of having autism is heartbreaking. 

When we get back to the house, Coleman stands at the front door, looking out.  “Where did the kids go?” he asks.  I think about the boys.  I say “I’m not sure buddy.”  “Do you want to see them?” he asks, meaning he wants to go see them.  I contemplate for a second taking him out for a walk to find them – maybe I can find them and convince them to come back to our house to play tag.  But I know Coleman really just wants to run, not play tag. And he wants you to hold his hand while you run.  I think how that will go over with the boys.  “OK, boys, thanks for coming.  Now everyone just starting running around, chasing each other , OK?   And you, Tommy, take Coleman’s hand OK?”  I wonder if there is something else I could convince them to play.  But Coleman’s game repertoire consists largely of pre-school games like hide n seek, tag, and duck, duck, goose and these boys are all 12 and 13 years old.  Coleman is still looking outside.  “Do you want to see them?” he asks again.  “I think they had to go to school” I tell him, because I can’t bring myself to say that they can’t play with him.     

When the girls were young, it seemed like there were always kids around.  On lazy Saturdays we would round up the kids in the neighborhood and play dodge ball.  Chalk covered the street in pastel patterns of names and hopscotch boxes.  Scooters and bikes littered the driveway.   But for Coleman, there is none of this.  There are no friends.   And while he doesn’t understand ‘play’ in the traditional sense, nor does he understand the term ‘friend’, he does desire the joy and fun that ‘friends’ bring.  He craves social interaction.  Every weekend he asks “How about we go…” and he waits.  He waits for me to fill in the blank with something fun to do.  He’ll accept almost anything really – a trip to the supermarket, Target, the library, a bike ride, even a walk down the street.  But most of our outings are just he and I, and even though I try to stay engaged with him at these times, constantly talking to him and asking questions, he quietly slides back into his own world of scripting and tv shows. 

The absence of friends and social opportunities is one of the toughest parts of having a child who is different.    Coleman knows enough to want to play, but not enough yet about how to play.  He yearns for social interaction, yet is unable to converse back and forth and engage appropriately.  It’s as sad a catch 22 as it gets.  So we try find opportunities for him to be with other kids.  There are some great programs run by SNAP (Special Needs Athletic Partnership) that we absolutely love and that Coleman thoroughly enjoys. But there is no unscheduled, unprogrammed social time.  There is no calling his friends to play catch out front.  No impromptu games of hide n' seek. No knock on the door asking if Coleman can come out and play. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  I wish for Coleman a time and place where he can be with other kids, kids that will see him arrive and run up to him and happily exclaim “Hi Coleman!  Want to play tag?!”  So I'm working on that.  It's a bigger project than you might think.  In the meantime, I figured out what Coleman needs in the near term.  He needs his own Posse.  I’m recruiting members if you are interested.  :)