writing – The Resilient Gardener

Scared …

Standing while a loved one shouts and screams at you, occasionally lashing out and hitting you. Such a force of rage, brewed up in an instant, and you are the target for all that venom.

What do you do?

You try to offer a word of defence or challenge their point of view, and the effect is like pouring water on a fire of oil. The rage erupts into greater ferocity, eyes straining in their sockets, bloodshot from the strains of anger and hatred.

What do you do?

You try to hold the flaying arms as they continually lash out at you, but your touch is reacted to as if you have seared their arms with branding irons. The rage erupts yet further.

What do you do? …

Answer = Remain Calm …

Experience has taught me. This reaction is passing. In time, it may not even be remembered. It is not personal. It is just a reaction to a situation. I aim to understand what that situation was. It could be that a spoken word has caused confusion, and his autistic mind cannot process what that word means. Panic has therefore set in. Fight or flight has set in. It could be that a smell, or a sound, or even the sensation of touch, or taste, has given rise to a hypersensitivity overload which triggers a need to defend against.

Can you stand in the face of that outrage and aggression? Ensure that he is (s)afe and can do no harm to himself. Reduce the level of stimulation from all sources. Can you ensure you are aware that you are intervening on behalf of a terrified person who needs your help and understanding? Can you remain (c)alm in the face of this attack? Can you find a way to empathise with this person, speaking softly and understandingly? (A)ffirm that you hear what they are saying, even if you disagree. Can you understand their requirement for (r)outine and guide them towards those familiar and safe places and activities? Through the ongoing rage, can you find a way to (e)mpathise with them? Demonstrating you’re in support and not in conflict with them. Have you understood yet what triggered this rage in the first place? An understanding that will help you (d)evelop a plan to prevent it next time.

Would you be able to understand that the person in front of you with such aggression and anger is SCARED? And needs your help.

You want to hug them, but can’t, as the sensation of being held at that moment would aggravate their sensitivities. Feelings of being trapped and constrained. You want to look them in the eye, but eye contact would be seen as threatening. You must guide them from a distance and stand with them until they calm down. When they do, then you can reach out and hold them. Comforting them as you always have and demonstrating your unconditional love for them.

Do you understand the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum?

About the book …

“Surely, had it [breach presentation] been spotted, additional attention could have been given, Marc’s risk of difficulties in birth would have been known and anticipated, and attention would have been brought sooner for a more successful delivery.

I could have taught him to swim, to dive and enjoy the water. I could have taught him to cycle, cross-country, track or road racing. I could have taught him to play guitar and piano and perform on a stage. I could have taught him to be humble yet respectfully stand his ground. I could have encouraged him to get up and start again when things were not right. I could have held him and cried together as his children, my grandchildren, came into the world. I could have… I know that I could. We would have walked across fells and valleys and walked together through rivers and streams as we followed each rainbow and found the pot of gold at the end of every one of them.

There are times when I grieve for the son we lost. There are times when I truly feel that way. In the early days, I was angered by my feelings. So often, I had wanted to turn to someone to ask, “Was this feeling normal? Was it okay to feel this way?”

Nobody was there to ask.”

(Extract from Marc’s Garden)

***

Opening the brown box with my name on the address label was such a thrill. Reaching in, I pulled out a copy of Marc’s Garden. After what seemed like (and really was) several years spent writing it, and then the inevitable rewriting following edits, I now had hold of my book. Could I call myself an author?

To say that I was thrilled was an understatement.

If you are looking to buy a copy of Marc’s Garden, there have been “technical issues” with Amazon UK making my book available, though they are working on a solution, but it is readily available through Olympia Publishing, Waterstones, Bookshop.org and other good booksellers.

Having completed this part of our journey, there was still an itch that needed scratching. This memoir told of Marc’s journey to a given point in time, that being the pandemic. Already, followers are asking, “What happened next?” In truth, how we encourage Marc to reengage with the world as restrictions were eased is where the next volume starts. “Beyond the Garden” draft is being worked on and I have also had suggestions of including photographs that Marc has taken which I am considering.

Before that comes to fruition, there have been many questions that I have unanswered by medics regarding his health and I found that I needed to explore those questions in what turned out to be my second book, Strange Conflicts which is due for publication soon. It is a fictional story which I hope you will find gripping and leave you asking the question, what if? As I did.

Behind the scenes …

It was only a few years after Marc was born, and we had learned about some of his health challenges, but at that time, by no means all, Marc’s late maternal grandfather emotionally announced that he was going to write a book about Marc.

We had no idea what he intended to write, and in truth, I knew him more for writing poetry rather than a story. He was a proud Scot and was never phased by any of the illnesses Marc suffered from. Sadly, he passed away before he put pen to paper, and we will never now know what he had mentally scoped out to write.

That may well have been my initial inspiration to write, contemplating what a story based on Marc’s challenging life could have been like. Since then, I have written unrelated technical articles for my workplace and contributed more associated pieces to the National Autistic Society about Marc’s struggles with autism and how we found ways to support him, even before we knew he was autistic. The diagnosis did not arrive until his late twenties, but once it did, it clarified much of the difficulty he faced in his early years.

As I put pen to paper (so to speak), encouraged also by many here, and I started to write my memoir, I did not think about Marc’s grandfather’s wish to write. It was not until I was about halfway through that I remembered those conversations I had with him.

I do not know if the book I wrote is anything like what he had hoped to write, and I never will, but I do hope that, in some way, it would have made him proud and that he would be pleased with what I have created.

A teaser …

Theo Sullivan remembered nothing of what he had been doing or where he was. The pain he felt now was all he knew. His whole body ached so badly, and his head hurt him so much. It felt like it had been split in two, torn apart by unseen hands—he felt like daggers were being driven into his temples.

He was sitting on the garden bench beside someone he could not recognise. A pang of anxiety swept through him, butterflies fluttering in his stomach. Snow was falling heavily on them both. Neither of them moved. The snow made no sound as it descended, covering the ground, as the two of them sat, waiting. Their world was turning white around them. Theo felt like some magical power had silenced all the sound. The quietness was deafening but strangely comforting to him. It was unclear to him why the evening remained silent. As Theo sat quietly, he wondered why he could not hear each snowflake as it hit the ground. The flakes were large, so surely, they should make a soft rustle as each one nestled itself in with the millions and millions, even billions, which had already fallen. He could see them all as they interlocked so precisely, each a unique masterpiece of nature.

As he sat, his thoughts returned to the person next to him. Recognition was returning, and he realised that it was his father. He felt relaxed and safe as that realisation returned to him.

Theo’s eyelids flickered as he continued to watch the flakes fall. He saw the intricate detail of each one. Theo saw the world differently from most people in that he would focus on the smallest details first, and only when his autistic mind had processed that level of detail would he allow his gaze to widen and gradually take in the larger scene. As the full moon broke through the clouds, its light reflected off each snowflake ever so slightly. The brightness of the colours from these reflections almost blinded him as the flakes fell in the limited light. He watched all their individual and magnificent shapes in sharp detail. Theo was suddenly distracted by his breath, which made clouds form in the cold air. Clouds of breath that looked thick and dense like smoke and then, moments later, dissipated in the chilly air. He breathed deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth. It was rhythmic, but why? He sensed something very uncertain, like he was under instruction, but could not recall what. Why was he breathing like this?

As Theo’s senses began to return to him, he became aware of a rustling sound off to his left. He was being watched all the time. The tiny eyes of the robin were watching his every move from its vantage point in the branches of the nearby Mountain Ash tree. Theo’s sharp eyes moved away from the falling snowflakes, and looking toward the rustling, he picked out the glowing red breast of the robin. Then he picked out those tiny black eyes reflecting the moon’s light in them. He was comforted by its presence. The robin was a regular visitor to his garden, eagerly waiting for any uncovered treats it could feed on or watching as Theo enjoyed as much of the garden as possible. He began to remember how his mother and father told him that the robins were watching him and watching over him like guardian angels.

Theo’s neck ached severely as he tried to turn to look at his father, sitting quietly at his side. His father looked almost comical with the snow lying in heaps on his hat. But for now, there was no room for amusement. The snow was also building up on his shoulders.

He did not move.

Theo was becoming aware of his father’s arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to him, which gave him a sense of warmth and calm as he sat there. Theo felt safe, but he did not yet know where or why he was there.

As Theo’s eyes focused more, he became aware of a tear that had run down his father’s cheek. It was frozen in the bitterly cold air, glistening in the moonlight he saw reflected in the snowflakes. He saw colours, almost rainbow-like, in that tear. The furrowed brow and creases around his father’s eyes. Theo thought about how old his father looked at that moment, and the weight of his father’s emotional struggle became palpable. He also felt his father’s sadness. Not understanding why or how, he sensed great sadness in his father’s expression.

Theo was trying to understand why all this was happening, but those thoughts did not come to him. He could not form the questions in his mind, though he sensed it had something to do with him. Theo wanted to say something, but no words came.

Why could he not speak?