“I hope she is still on this Earth,” Brady whispers under his breath with some apprehension as we drive to the beach for the first time this summer.
“Mom, is she still on this Earth?” I know exactly who he is talking about. It’s Ms. April, Brady’s 85-year-old surrogate grandma and beloved beach companion. She sits near her allotted blue umbrella, which is at the end of a long row of solid blue umbrellas placed every morning by strapping able-bodied lifeguards. She’s never ever under that umbrella whose tag reads “APRIL, #72,” even when it is blazing hot with little breeze.
Last summer, Brady sat under her umbrella building sandcastles and fetching salty ocean water with her cooling bucket. She’d dip her hand into her little bucket and then slather the salty water over her neck, chest, and long dark arms. She was a most unlikely friend, but that never matters to Brady. He never passes any judgment on characteristics such as age, skin or hair color, accents, or any of that surface stuff; he feels a person’s warmth through their vocal tone and smile, a person’s joy through their laughter. I believe that Brady felt strongly connected to Ms. April because of her matter-of-fact way of engaging herself with a unique boy– instead of merely smiling at him.
“He’s different. He autistic,” I told her last summer as Brady walked away to refill her green water bucket.
“Yes, I know that. He’s a complete delight, mom. He sees everything. Notices so many details. He can stay here for as long as he wants.”
I gulp at this straight-shooter woman, smile coyly in a bit of disbelief, and walk back to my beach camp chuckling to myself. He’s a 9-year-old boy who gets a huge kick out of conversing with another nature lover who is also fascinated by the myriad of colors on small shells. The details of small things that aren’t merely small things at all in his mind. They are the things of wonder and great appeal.
June 2019
The very first day we settle on the beach, Brady asks if he can go see if Ms. April is there.
But she is not. I fear the worst. After all, we all know she smokes very thin cigarettes and has a jarring cough.
Brady runs back to our beach setup. “She’s not there.”
“She doesn’t live here full time, Brady. She may be coming any day,” I answer with certainty.
Two days later, around 11am, Brady shouts out: “MOM!! I SEE MS. APRIL!”
He runs to her just as she is settling down in her low beach chair, near umbrella #72.
I give them a few minutes together and then walk over to greet her. She grins widely, “Hello Mom! How are you?” She tells me that it warms her heart that he remembered her. He tells her “I’ve missed you so much!” as he scoops up wet sand to build a sandcastle to her liking.
“More shells, Brady. The small ones we like. Add them to the top.”
Back at the house, Brady talks to me as I make dinner.
“Ms. April is really hilarious, Mom.” He just asked me the other day what ‘hilarious’ means.
(“It means really, really funny. Super funny.”)
“How is she hilarious? What does she say that’s so hilarious?” I ask him in hopes of understanding why he finds her so amusing.
He smiles with a sparkle in his bright eyes. “She says silly things. She says I’m a sandy mess! I’m acting like a ghost crab (by burying myself in the sand).”
Day after day that week, we arrive on the beach and Brady looks to see if Ms. April has arrived near her stationed blue umbrella. When she comes, he asks me if he can go visit her. When I say yes, he runs down the beach to greet her.
He kneels at her feet, and she tells him about the birds she’s already spotted, the swirling conch shells that are at the shoreline waiting to be collected by those who marvel at their intricacies.
“Do you know why the birds are flying in that pattern over that dark ocean area, Brady?”
He turns his head towards the darkened water patch just past the rolling waves.
She continues: “LOOK! See them nose diving? They are pulling up fish that are pooling under the water. There must be hundreds of them, Brady!”
“That one has a fish!” Brady exclaims as the gull flies to the back of the beach to nesting grounds.
To some, the beauty of the beach is the rolling waves, the clean sand, and the brilliant blue sky. To others, the beauty lies in the intricacies of ocean life itself: the diverse bird life, the myriad of uniquely shaped shells, the small clams that burrow a half-inch under the wet sand, and the scurrying ghost crabs that play peek-a-boo in their holes as a watchful young boy yells out “Look over there, Ms. April!”
Brady and Ms. April observe all of this with fascination.
Hilarious? I think he enjoys her blunt humor as she teases him about rolling around in the sand. She must get a giggle at just how uninhibited Brady can be.
She’s found a kindred spirit in Brady. Just like her, he says what’s on his mind without pause. With each other, they delight in sharing their reflections about the details of the beach’s finest treasures.
Autistic children may or may not make much eye contact. They can seemingly be trapped in their own world with a fixation on whatever is looping repetitively in their beautiful brains. One might assume they don’t enjoy social interaction, but that’s simply not true. I believe personal connections are critical for children on the spectrum. It affirms that they are heard, that they are loved, that they are valued and accepted just as they are.
To read my first story about Brady and Ms. April, please check out my blog post titled: “A Seagull, an Old Woman, and a Boy who Crossed a Boundary.”
This post is part of Finish the Sentence Friday blog hop, hosted by the big-hearted Kristi Campbell of www.findingninee.com. Her son and Brady were classmates in their preschool autism classroom. This week’s theme is LOVE.
I love love love this one so much, my friend. I’m glad “the worst” didn’t happen and that Brady and Ms. April reconnected as the soul souls they are – without pause or awkwardness.
Thank you, Kristi! There is a lot of sweetness in their friendship. It’s been so wonderful to watch.
Perfect.
Yes to this love and finding beautiful, hilarious, connections.