It’s spring.
My favorite prom was the Masconomet Regional High School Junior/Senior prom on May 17, 1974. I was in the 10th grade, so technically, it wasn’t my prom, but rather that of my boyfriend Carl, who became such after he was assigned to be my lab partner in Chemistry. boyfriend, small b. Technically I wasn’t allowed to date yet, at the age of 15. Nerdy long before nerdy became cool in The Big Bang Theory, Carl made me laugh, especially when he responded coitenly! to my questions and requests. We didn’t live far from one another, so we rode bikes (I kid you not) and went ice skating on the pond in back of my house in the winter. It was, I assure you, a very chaste relationship.
My Dad was sure that all boys including Carl were after only one thing, and was not at all keen on me going to the prom “a year ahead of time,” if for no other reason than the prom met anyone’s definition of A Date, and my Dad said this would “open the floodgates.” Mom intervened, and won, but only on Dad’s condition that Carl and I did not attend any after-prom parties. We were to come right home after the dancing. I felt bad for Carl, but he agreed. What a sweet guy.
The theme of the prom was Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin. It took place in the function room of a Howard Johnson’s (I kid you not), lit across the ceiling, of course, with pinpoints of light evocative of a starry night. Carl wore a powder blue tux with a frilly shirt (it was the 70s) and I wore a midi-length halter dress in a matching blue I made myself in Sewing and Tailoring with all the other die-hard fashion merchandising wannabes. Forty one years on, I don’t remember their names, but predictably the prom King and Queen were the captains of the football team and the cheerleading squad. Carl got me home 30 minutes after we left HoJo’s, which coincidentally is exactly how long it took to get from the function venue to my home when one drives exactly the speed limit. I know that to be true because my Dad timed it. Carl and I broke up a few months later for reasons a good Christian girl keeps in her heart, and because, frankly, that’s what kids do: serial interpersonal exploration.
Proms are among those milestones in growing up we often wonder if our kids with autism will ever get to experience. Equally, we wonder if we as parents will get to experience milestones like these through our child’s eyes, perhaps while softly revisiting our own past, and enjoying that sense of continuity, the conveyor belt of life relentlessly and reliably rolling on.
When you have a child with autism, you learn to expect the sometimes random, sometimes predictable stabs of grief that come from ‘missing out’ on milestones. I was prepared for the “petite-mal” grief when prom season came around. (Getting a diagnosis of autism = grand mal; letting your adolescent watch Veggie Tales instead of having Christmas dinner = petite mal.) So it was with utter disbelief that I heard Jason say, in Jason-ese, that he wanted to go to the prom.
This is the kid we could not tear away from his evening routine of homework/piano practice/dinner/Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune/iPod Time/brush teeth/go to bed so he could try a middle school dance, or maybe an overnight with the Scouts. We who are family members get frustrated sometimes with these routines that are so soothing to many people with autism; but on the other hand I must admit it lends a pattern of predictability to our otherwise pretty unpredictable life (having, as we do, two kids with autism. Jason loves routines, Josh is easily bored by them. As they say, if you have met one kid with autism, you’ve met one kid with autism.)
Jason pointed out the prom would be on May 14, 7 pm to 11 pm, at the Taste of Maine. Tickets were $30 for one person, $50 per couple. He wanted to buy the $50 ticket.
Stunned, I asked “Who do you want to ask to go with you?”
“Sabrina.”[i]
Dear, dear Sabrina. Sabrina had been in Jason’s classes since the fourth grade. When Jason was in the fourth grade, he was not yet verbal. Jason distinguished himself among his peers (all 11 of them—there are only 80 kids K-6 in the entire Georgetown Island Central School where we live) as someone with a short fuse and robust lungs, even for a non-verbal kiddo. I was mortified. My child was the problem child in our quaint little community. (Well, Josh was a problem child too, but he was in a different, special school with lots of “problem” kids, where he kept up with them well). One island mother actually insisted on visiting the 4th grade class for a few days to verify that the classroom teacher (who had an ed tech to help with Jason) wasn’t diverting too much of her attention from the “normal” kids to focus on Jason. That got me cranky enough to overcome some of my mortification, replacing it with indignation.
(When you have special kids, it ends up almost being as much about you as it is about the kids. You don’t plan on it, it just happens.)
Over the years I’ve gone back and forth on inclusion. A drawback is the inclusive site, like a regular classroom in a public school, is not always prepared to handle a challenging student. On the other hand the great thing about inclusion is the child’s peers get to know the special child. As accommodating and resilient as children can (generally) be, they learn to accept the special needs child for who he is.
One day Jason fell down on the playground and skinned his knee. Still in the fourth grade, still non-verbal, he screamed, and screamed, and beat his head with his fist. Sabrina came running across the playground with her arms stretched to each side saying, “Don’t worry, everybody, don’t worry! It’s not Jason, it’s just his autism!!”
Now that is wisdom.
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I believe the seeds of Jason’s interest in the Prom were sown in Health class, in the 7th grade. Seventh grade Health was the memorable year Jason learned in specific detail about boys, girls and reproduction. Jason had begun talking the summer after fourth grade, but by grade 7 he was still far from fluent, and certainly not aware that there are times and places to talk about certain things and times and places not to talk about certain things. Or body parts. Or acts of intimacy.
Jason began opining frequently about how to make babies and who he thought he should make them with. To which our family responded with a tinge of panic, “In this family, you get married before you make babies.”
“What is married?”
I showed Jason my wedding ring, Steve showed Jason his. “Married. You go to church, the pastor teaches you some things, you get a ring, you get married.”
“And have a baby. Like Gina.” (One of our staff was pregnant. Baby Colby was in her belly. Gina has a wedding ring. It was all coming together for Jason.)
“Wedding ring first, then maybe babies.”
Fast forward to 12th grade. Senior year. I figured I’d be lucky if I could get Jason to go to graduation, let alone to the prom. Graduation would have to have a huge payoff, like a big cake.
But then Jason said he wanted to go to the prom, and buy the ticket-for-two.
“Who do you want to ask to go with you?” I asked.
“Sabrina.”
So we scripted a phone call, looked online for Sabrina’s number, and Jason dialed. Turned out we got an answering machine. Jason worked through his script:
“Hi, this is Jason Perry, for Sabrina. Hi Sabrina, this is Jason. Would you like to go to the prom with me?”
And then Jason deviated from the script.
To understand this, you need to know Jason called me when he got to school every day, and we had more or less the same conversation day after day. It’s a Mom thing for me, a soothing ritual for him. And Jason always ended the call to me the same way, by echoing what I said in closing to him. The same way he now ended the message on the answering machine for Sabrina:
“Love you, Babe. Bye!”
Love you Babe!!! OMG, what would Sabrina’s parents think? What would Sabrina think? As soon as Jason wandered off, I called the same number back and left a message of my own along the lines of reminding the family that Jason has autism (about which I don’t think there was much confusion) and thank you for their patience, and I would be happy to answer any questions they may have.
A day later, Sabrina called back.
“Thank you for the invitation, Jay.” (Yes, I listened on the extension, and I make no apologies for that. I had to make absolutely sure there was no exploitation going on. We can argue this point later.) “I’m so sorry Jay,” Sabrina said. “I’m going to the prom with my boyfriend Tom.”
“Yes,” Jason said.
“But I’ll save you a seat and a dance!” Sabrina said. “And I’m so glad you asked me!”
“K, bye,” Jason said. (We had had a talk about not saying “Love you Babe” to anyone anymore.) As I quietly hung up the extension, I thought, what a wonderful young woman. What a caring person. This is the payoff for an investment in peers that began with risk and bumps in the fourth grade.
One of the few good things about having autism is since social relationships are not a strong point, this kind of dating “rejection” doesn’t hurt much. Jason seemed fine with the alternative plan of a seat and a dance, and set about shopping with me for a new suit and a boutonnière.
On May 14th, Jason drove (on his Learner’s permit) to the Taste of Maine. He threw me the keys, bounded up the stairs, and disappeared among a sea of pretty dresses, dark suits, and aftershave. I went over to one of the teachers chaperoning and thanked her in advance for keeping a special eye out for Jason.
“Oh no problem,” she said. “But I’m just a little puzzled. All week Jason’s been talking about getting a wedding ring at the prom. What’s that all about?”
Jason in his GQ pose ready for the prom
This was galvanizing to me, but I calmed myself by remembering that Jason is a very literal thinker, and I could not imagine a way he was going to come home with a wedding ring. Plus, the wedding ring rule was intertwined with other rules about pastors and getting married that seemed impossible to pull off in four hours. I thought we were pretty safe.
At 11 o’clock precisely (another one of Jason’s endearing traits), Jason emerged onto the steps of Taste of Maine with Sabrina on his arm. Sabrina’s Mom’s car pulled up beside me. With the Mom windows both open, Sabrina gushed “Jay did wicked great! He danced all night! We had a blast!”
This gave me pause. “Wow,” I finally said. “What did Tom think of all that?”
“Oh, Tom.” Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Tom bailed on me. He went with his ex-girlfriend. What a jerk! I was so glad to spend the evening with Jason!”
–And that was Jason’s Excellent Prom Adventure.
[i] A pseudonym.
What an excellent story! Having had the pleasure of working with Jason and his family, especially Mom, while he was in public school, I do believe Sabrina is the lucky one here! She did, indeed, have a fortunate prom date in Jason! And I’m guessing the wedding ring got lost in the rush of an exciting evening. 🙂
What a story and what a journey!!!