Life with Adam
By Eric Goldstein
Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.
By Eric Goldstein
Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the author exclusively.
“Hey, Adam, do you want to play catch?” I eagerly ask my younger brother. “Sure, go get the ball,” he replies nonchalantly. Despite the superficial simplicity of this response, I run to tell my family what just occurred.
Every night I have that dream, and every morning I am disappointed. In my brother's fourteen years, we have never had a conversation like that, and it is possible we never will. My desire to play catch is not unrequited; however, Adam has autism, which impedes his social, cognitive, and lingual development, thus preventing him from verbally expressing his desire to play catch.
Although I love my brother, his disability presents several obstacles that I must overcome. I feel embarrassed when we are in public and people point, laugh, or stare because Adam is behaving inappropriately. I become frustrated when he is unable to complete a simple task. I detest the hackneyed phrase “you're retarded” because my peers carelessly use it, not realizing how wounding those two words can be. I have unfortunately grown used to hearing people make fun of the mentally challenged, but I was shocked when I heard someone joke about autism. A boy once made a careless error during a basketball game and his enraged teammate fulminated, “Wow, I'd be better off playing with a kid with autism on my team.” The pain I felt was inexplicable. My immediate thought was to hurt him as badly as he had just hurt me. However, I realized that fighting him would be foolish. In addition to the fact that violence is not the proper solution for any issue, I also would have failed to address the overall problem: the ignorance that surrounds autism.
It was this event which sparked my dedication to the promotion of autism awareness. It encouraged me to lead and participate in several autism awareness walks, sell autism awareness products and donate the proceeds to autism research organizations, and volunteer in various programs for special needs children. My biggest accomplishment was expanding one of my school clubs from supporting only one charity to supporting autism awareness and other charities as well. Our goal is to simultaneously raise money and educate people in the community so they will think twice before staring at children with autism or saying foolish, harmful comments. I have set a foundation that will allow others in my community to continue educating future generations about autism.
I used to view autism as a race with seemingly endless, insurmountable obstacles. Fortunately, I am beginning to see a visible finish line, and I know my strategic, inventive hard work, combined with hope, will undoubtedly result in being able to cross it. I cannot instantaneously cure my brother's autism, but I can accept the situation we are in, and put forth my best effort to improve it. I would do anything to make my dream become reality and hear my brother speak. But even though he may never ask me to play catch with him, the smile on his face when we are playing together shows me that he feels like the luckiest person in the world. Similarly, I know that when he sees my smile he understands that I feel the same exact way. And that tacit exchange is worth more than any sentence.
The author, Eric Goldstein, is a senior at Parsippany Hills High School. His brother, Adam, is 14 years old.
If you have a story you wish to share about your personal experience with autism, please send it to editors@autismspeaks.org. Autism Speaks reserves the right to edit contributions for space, style and content. Because of the volume of submissions, not all can be published on the site.
Every night I have that dream, and every morning I am disappointed. In my brother's fourteen years, we have never had a conversation like that, and it is possible we never will. My desire to play catch is not unrequited; however, Adam has autism, which impedes his social, cognitive, and lingual development, thus preventing him from verbally expressing his desire to play catch.
Although I love my brother, his disability presents several obstacles that I must overcome. I feel embarrassed when we are in public and people point, laugh, or stare because Adam is behaving inappropriately. I become frustrated when he is unable to complete a simple task. I detest the hackneyed phrase “you're retarded” because my peers carelessly use it, not realizing how wounding those two words can be. I have unfortunately grown used to hearing people make fun of the mentally challenged, but I was shocked when I heard someone joke about autism. A boy once made a careless error during a basketball game and his enraged teammate fulminated, “Wow, I'd be better off playing with a kid with autism on my team.” The pain I felt was inexplicable. My immediate thought was to hurt him as badly as he had just hurt me. However, I realized that fighting him would be foolish. In addition to the fact that violence is not the proper solution for any issue, I also would have failed to address the overall problem: the ignorance that surrounds autism.
It was this event which sparked my dedication to the promotion of autism awareness. It encouraged me to lead and participate in several autism awareness walks, sell autism awareness products and donate the proceeds to autism research organizations, and volunteer in various programs for special needs children. My biggest accomplishment was expanding one of my school clubs from supporting only one charity to supporting autism awareness and other charities as well. Our goal is to simultaneously raise money and educate people in the community so they will think twice before staring at children with autism or saying foolish, harmful comments. I have set a foundation that will allow others in my community to continue educating future generations about autism.
I used to view autism as a race with seemingly endless, insurmountable obstacles. Fortunately, I am beginning to see a visible finish line, and I know my strategic, inventive hard work, combined with hope, will undoubtedly result in being able to cross it. I cannot instantaneously cure my brother's autism, but I can accept the situation we are in, and put forth my best effort to improve it. I would do anything to make my dream become reality and hear my brother speak. But even though he may never ask me to play catch with him, the smile on his face when we are playing together shows me that he feels like the luckiest person in the world. Similarly, I know that when he sees my smile he understands that I feel the same exact way. And that tacit exchange is worth more than any sentence.
The author, Eric Goldstein, is a senior at Parsippany Hills High School. His brother, Adam, is 14 years old.
If you have a story you wish to share about your personal experience with autism, please send it to editors@autismspeaks.org. Autism Speaks reserves the right to edit contributions for space, style and content. Because of the volume of submissions, not all can be published on the site.
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