Left Brain Right Brain

I happened on Following Ezra by chance. It was available as an electronic book from my library. I downloaded it and started reading it and was very happy I had.

Following Ezra depicts itself as: What One Father Learned about Gumby, Otters, Autism and Love from His Extraordinary Son. The author, Tom Fields-Meyer, has written for years including for People Magazine, so he knows how to tell a story.

An often quoted incident from the book involves when he first heard his son was autistic:

When Tom Fields-Meyer’s son Ezra was a toddler and showing early signs of autism, a therapist suggested that the father allow himself time to mourn.
“For what?” he asked.
The answer: “For the child he didn’t turn out to be.”

Mr. Fields-Meyer didn’t feel like mourning (which is a rather extraordinary take on his own). His memoir covers about a decade. A decade of discovery and growth for his son and for himself. It’s a memoir, not a preachy message book. But the underlying theme Mr. Fields-Meyer has is one of acceptance and

Here is an excerpt I bookmarked:

I understand the instinct so many parents have to fight battles, trying to nudge children towards more mainstream pursuits. I gauge our other sons’ progress by the kinds of standard measurements most modern mothers and fathers use: We have watched Ami’s evolution through the ever-larger trophies he collects at the end of each baseball and soccer season, a series of student government positions, and friendships; Noam rises through the ranks at the Karate studio, each new belt and patch marking another level of accomplishment, and makes his way through the Suzuki violin book, showing ever-increasing ability and focus. Tracking Ezra’s advancement is different. With each passing month and year, he grows more singular.

At some point I realize that is precisely the way to build a relationship with my son: through the trains, the Gumby figures, the endless trail of red. Instead of seeing his obsessions as traits to change, Shawn and I come to view them as opportunities to build a bond–a quirky, unpredictable, whimsical bond, to be sure, but a strong one. Instead of lamenting that we can’t have an ordinary conversation with our son about the Dodgers or sitcoms or what happened in school that day, we join him. We follow his lead.

Sometimes that brings me to unexpected places. I find myself sending my hard-earned dollars via Paypal to a guy in Missouri selling decadesold clay-animated characters, or standing in line at the Target story, my shopping cart filled with red jerseys and pajamas. Sometimes I pause and wonder whether we are doing the right thing.

Over time, though, I come to realize a reward: Ezra understands that another human cares about what he cares about. Slowly, over time, our connection grows, and so does his potential to have other relationships with people. relationships based on something more than Gumby.

Like I wrote above, it isn’t a book about acceptance, but a book about a family that incorporated acceptance into their lives from an early point. There is a great deal of misinformation about acceptance (it’s “giving up”, for example), that it’s good to have a book like this to point people to put a real-life picture to the idea.

I’ll admit that I’m only about 1/2 way through the book. Given the way that my life often takes me away from side projects–blog posts, finishing books (what was I thinking buying the Shelby Foote book on the Civil War?) and the like–I thought it good to get something out now. The book only seems to be getting better the more I read.

—
By Matt Carey

In the process of moving from being self-hosted to being hosted by wordpress.com, we lost the list of books that Kev had compiled over the years. I’ve started rebuilding that list and will try to go through some new books in posts in the near future. The page Books and Movies is already up and will grow with time. Feel free to offer recommendations or to remind me of books that were on the previous list.