Essay #2

The Sculptor

With a mighty strike of the mallet the stone fell away, revealing what I feared lay beneath. Like the creation of stone sculpture, the diagnosis of my daughter’s autism didn’t happen in the course of a day. Instead it was a slow chipping away of what I thought was my daughter until the disability was finally revealed.

My head was heavy with anxiety and I pulled the car to a stop in a busy parking lot. Cars moved in and out, patrons passed in a blur, but I sat slumped with my forehead pressed against the steering wheel, crying. The autumn sun, high in the midday sky, shown through the windshield and a prickly sweat broke out across my neck and forehead. I felt choked by the collar of my red, cable-knit sweater. In the back seat my fifteen-month-old daughter sat quietly in her car seat, sucking her thumb. She was always quiet. I had thought that was just the way she was, but now I knew that it was just the way autism was.

She had been born perfect, five pounds and twelve ounces, a pink and crying little miracle. We had celebrated her arrival into our family, our fourth child, our second daughter. She had been loved from the start, her young siblings clamoring to see her and hold her tiny hands. She had grown quickly and had become a firmly rooted member of our family.

Eye contact had been the first thing to go. That had been the first part of the stone to chip away. I remembered her smiling; I had pictures of her early on, gazing into the camera lens with a toothless grin and wide, blue eyes. But then it was gone, subtly. She just would not look me in the eye. She would not look anyone in the eye. Instead, she would turn her eyes to the side. I could get in her face all I wanted, she still would not look at me.

I justified and rationalized her behavior. She’s just nervous, I would say, she always looks away when she is scared. But she did not talk and at fifteen months, she barely crawled. I could only rationalize so much. Then came the seizures. They had actually been a blessing. When her little body began to rock and stiffen, her breathing slow and labored, I had been forced to acknowledge that there was something terribly wrong.

The pediatrician had referred us to a neurologist, revered in his field, who had diagnosed her seizures and handed me a card. “Look into Early Intervention services,” he had said. I had brought my daughter to this specialist for a cure, a way to heal my daughter’s seizures. I had assumed he would tell me that after a few months of anti-seizure medication she would be okay. But that is not what had happened, and as I took the card from his hand another piece of the stone had chipped away. I began to fear what was hidden beneath the surface. My daughter was changing, being shaped by the skilled and crafty hands of her disability, an affliction we would later be told was autism.

I had reluctantly called the number on the card and arranged an appointment with the therapists at Davis County Early Intervention. I had been ignorant; I had no idea what Early Intervention was. They had sent me a long questionnaire about my daughter’s cognitive and physical development to fill out and bring to the appointment.

Question: Does your child walk?

Answer: No.

Question: Does your child talk, or attempt to talk by approximating words?

Answer: Uh, no.

Question: Does your child recognize parents or show fear with strangers?

Answer: Uh oh. No.

Chip. Chip. Another piece of the stone had fallen away.

Still when I had arrived at the office for my appointment with Early Intervention, I had been fully prepared to hear their glowing adorations of my beautiful daughter. I had felt confident that they would only tell me that with a little help, she would soon begin reaching all the appropriate milestones. But that is not what had happened, and another piece of the stone had chipped away.

The office had been set up exactly like a preschool with shelves full of colorful books around the room, musical instruments in one corner, a doll house in another, the alphabet clearly visible, and miniature-sized tables and chairs placed in an orderly fashion in the center of the room. After reading the questionnaire I had filled out, and doing some discrete assessments of my daughter, a nurse, a speech and language pathologist, an occupational therapist, and a developmental therapist had all gathered around me. I had been seated in a rocking chair while they had been seated on a blue, circular story-time type rug on the floor. The speech and language pathologist had read from her report. “Your daughter has moderate to severe developmental delays in all areas.” The words had been cold and heavy like rocks as she had spoken them, yet they had traveled like lightning across the distance between us, landing with thunderous noise and sinking right to my heart.

I had swallowed hard and choked out the only question I could ask: “Will she catch up?”

They didn’t need to speak; the looks on their collective faces had said it all. Yet the nurse had chosen to offer hope. “We see miracles all the time.” She had smiled at me, a smile full of pity for the tears that had begun to fill my eyes.

I had been numb on the ride home, trying to push all thoughts of what I had just been through out of my mind, until about a mile from my house. It was then that I felt the full blow of the sculptor’s mallet and the final piece of stone fell away. My daughter as I had known her was gone. In her place was this new creation, what autism had made her. Moderately to severely delayed in all areas. The pain of that realization was too much to bear and I eased my car off the highway, pulling into the bustling parking lot of Smith’s grocery store. As cars passed and patrons walked by with their carts full of nothing, I hung my head low and cried—really cried. I felt the pain coming from somewhere deep within in my chest as I coughed and wailed for the loss of the daughter I thought I had. All the while she sat behind me, quietly waiting for me to realize she wasn’t gone, she was still there.

I slowly lifted my head, turning to look at my baby in the back seat. I smiled and waited for her to respond. She did not; autism would not let her. I sighed and wiped my wet face with the sleeve of my sweater. In silence I drove home.

In time I would realize that while my daughter had changed, it was my turn to pick up the sculptor’s chisel and mallet and begin chipping away. I could not heal her, but I could change what autism had done to her. The tools would become mine. And eventually, like the great sculptures of art history, my daughter’s true beauty would be revealed.