The Spark

by Kristine Barnett

  Jake, of course, shared none of my worries about the workload. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, Mom!” That’s what he kept saying, and I could see it was true. He’d be working with Dr. Yogesh Joglekar, researching condensed matter physics as it relates to fiber optics, which involves Jake’s guiding passion, how light travels through space. I knew Dr. Joglekar and trusted him, and Jake was so excited about the chance that at the end of the day, we couldn’t say no. As Mike pointed out, Jake has always been a researcher at heart. He is relentlessly curious about how the world works. While you and I take it for granted that there are things we’ll never understand, Jake has never been able to complacently accept that, and when an explanation eludes him, it drives him nuts.

  At the beginning of the summer, all the students who had been chosen for the research program were invited to a meeting held at the law school. It’s a beautiful building, with heavily varnished wood paneling, marble, and Greek statues everywhere. The first thing I noticed was how professional everyone seemed. Jake’s classmates, even though they often have eight inches and a hundred pounds on him, are college students. They wear jeans and baseball caps and have baby faces and problem skin and dubious hygiene. They look, in short, like kids. The undergraduate researchers, by contrast, were carrying leather briefcases and wearing somber, professional-looking dresses and suits. I’d pulled him away from playing Frisbee with his brothers to come, so Jake was in what we call his “uniform”—backward baseball cap, T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops—while I was wearing a hot-pink sundress with a bow in front at the waist. Given how we were dressed, I was a little alarmed to see the head of the program making her way over to us.

  “You’re Jake’s mom,” she said, shaking my hand. “We’re so pleased he’s going to participate in the program. We expect great things from him.” I assume she knew, as I did not, that his appointment to this program was breaking a world record. That day, Jake would become the youngest astrophysics researcher in the world.

  As we sat and waited for the speakers to begin, I couldn’t help thinking about my own first summer job on a farm. Along with a group of Mexican migrant workers, I walked up and down row after row of corn, thinning, de-tasseling, and finally pollinating it. It was backbreaking work in overpowering heat. Sweat would pool at the bottom of the huge waders we wore. At lunch, we’d sit on overturned buckets and eat our sandwiches in the back of a semitrailer so hot that the air rose up in waves. As a joke, the farmers would put dead mice in our lockers. I learned not to scream because it only made them laugh harder.

  I was terrified of the farm dogs patrolling the cornstalks, so my mom sent me an electronic device designed to repel them. She’d found the device advertised in the back of a magazine, but I guess she hadn’t read the ad carefully enough, because it did just the opposite and attracted the dogs in wild, snarling masses. That’s how I found myself “treed” in the bed of a pickup, shaking with fear, until one of the farmers took the device away from me and crushed it under his boot heel.

  The next summer, I worked at Wendy’s, where the smell of pickles, mustard, ketchup, and grease-soaked meat lodged so deeply in my clothes and hair that I felt as though it was seeping out of my pores. I smelled like that for months. No shower could make me feel clean. When I left that job for one at a pizza parlor, I was honest with my boss about my reasons for leaving: “I just need to smell like something else for a change.”

  Those were my first summer jobs, and this was Jake’s. It’s every parent’s hope that his or her child will do better and go further than he or she has, and here we were. All I could do was laugh and shake my head.

  The woman who runs the program welcomed us by telling the moving story of her own beginnings in academic research. When the letter arrived inviting her to be a fellow at her college, it mentioned a stipend. Her working-class father couldn’t imagine that someone would pay her to study, or to think, or to write. He was convinced that the number on that paper represented the amount of money they’d have to pay in order for her to participate, and he almost didn’t let her go. Until the day she cashed the first check, he remained convinced that it was some kind of scam. She told the story with compassion, and I felt my face grow hot. Sitting there in my sundress, I could relate to her dad.

  Then she began to talk about the mentoring program. Every undergraduate researcher in the room would be paired up with an older scholar, someone with more experience, who could give the undergraduate the tools he or she would need to succeed in their chosen field. Both parties were expected to take that relationship very seriously. Jake’s mentor would be Dr. Jokelgar. Not only would the researchers meet one-on-one with their mentors every week, but they would also attend a weekly luncheon, dressed in formal clothes, for a lecture on a larger topic related to professional development or scientific ethics.

  I had fully expected to be bored during this ceremony, but I found myself weeping. By assigning Jake a mentor, it was as if the university was making a commitment to him: “We are going to support you and give you the direction and leadership you need.” It was time for me to share him and to allow him to get the help he deserved.

  Jake was less emotional. “Seriously? I’m gonna have to wear a suit?”

  He didn’t have one either. On the rare occasions when we had to dress up, Jake had always been able to get away with a clean pair of dark pants and a nice sweater. So off we went to the Macy’s at the mall. While the tailor knelt at his ankles, pins in his mouth, to alter the length of the pants, Jake shuffled out of his flip-flops and showed the world his dusty summer feet.

  “He was playing Frisbee at the playground,” I found myself explaining to the poor guy. (He earned his commission that day. He had to show me how to tie a tie, too.) When he wanted to know why we were buying the suit, Jake and I just looked at each other. “We have a wedding to go to later in the summer,” I said, which was true, and considerably less complicated to explain.

  When the tie was on and the suit was all pinned up, I stood back and looked at my little boy. He looked great—almost.

  “Jake, you have to take off the baseball cap.”

  He wasn’t happy, but he did. His hair was long and wild-looking, pointing up every which way. “I guess you’re going to need a haircut, too.”

  “No, Mom! I can’t get a haircut! This is my science hair!”

  I laughed out loud. Mentor or no mentor, this was still my baby.

  When you teach your child to ride a bike, you walk up and down the street by his side. He needs you to hold him up until he learns to balance on his own. Sometimes he falls, but very quickly the skills come together, and even though your hand is still right there, something amazing happens: He finds his balance and takes off.

  That day, I saw a boy riding his bike solo for the very first time. I had been scared I’d be stuck there, watching him ride off over the horizon. But the amazing thing about Jake is that he didn’t leave us in the dust. And he never will. He never minds waiting at the corner for us, or swinging around in a loop to pick us up. He circles back for me after each class at the university, sharing funny comments people made and errors he found in the textbook and new ideas he supports or refutes. He circles back for the kids he helps and tutors. Right now, he’s writing a book to help math-phobic kids. That’s how driven he is to help other people, especially other children, to see the beauty of math and science. He wants to bring all of us with him. That’s what’s beautiful about Jake.

  I’d have to learn to trust other people with him. Mostly, I’d have to learn to share. For me, that’s really what this book is, the chance to share Jake and his gifts with the world.

  A Celebration

  Aside from whatever misgivings he had about dressing up, Jake loved doing research that summer. And strangely, he also had a great deal of free time. It seemed as if he was always biking down the block with his buddies from the neighborhood or heading off with his brothers to shoot hoops. He didn’t appear to be doing much work, and I began to feel
a little concerned.

  When I asked him about it, he explained that Dr. Joglekar had been giving him assignments every week and that he had been completing them. I hadn’t seen him hitting the books because he had, so far, been able to do the problems in his head during our forty-five-minute car ride home from the university. This week, he said, would be the exception. He didn’t think he’d be able to solve the latest problem he’d been given in time for his meeting on Tuesday.

  I launched into a stern lecture about the importance of a strong work ethic. “You have a job now, Jake. You’re being paid, and people are counting on you to do whatever is asked of you. These problems are not optional. I expect you to stay in and do what you have to do this weekend in order to have your work completed by Tuesday.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” he said. That shook me a little, since I’d never seen Jake even remotely concerned about anything math related. “In that case, you give it your best effort,” I told him. “Take a crack at it. And remember, there’s no shame in asking for help.”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone to ask, Mom.”

  A couple of hours later, I heard him laughing with Wes as they left the house and headed over to the park. I opened the upstairs window and called down, “Jake, did you get your work done?”

  “Yes, Mom, I think I’ve got something I can use.”

  “Good. I’m glad you got through that, honey. I’m proud of you.”

  Of course, at the time, I didn’t have the slightest inkling of how proud I should have been.

  Jake called me the following Tuesday, as he always did, to let me know when he was leaving his appointment with Dr. Joglekar. He was as excited as I’d ever heard him.

  “I did it, Mom, I did it!”

  “Slow down, honey. What did you do?”

  “I solved it! I solved the problem!”

  “That’s great! I’m so glad you stuck with it.”

  “No, Mom, you don’t understand. It was an open problem, a problem in math nobody has been able to solve. And I solved it!”

  I had misunderstood. This hadn’t been any ordinary homework assignment, but the kind of problem that career mathematicians take months, years, even decades to unravel. Yet in two hours, between working on his jump shot and playing on the Xbox, Jake had solved it. In hindsight, I’m thankful that during my lecture on the importance of a strong work ethic, I’d had no idea what I’d been asking him to do.

  With the completion of that assignment, Jake’s summer research was officially done. Solving that open problem was a huge breakthrough, with major implications not only for his adviser’s research but also for math and fiber-optics technology. He put together a presentation on the breakthrough for a symposium at the university, and he and Dr. Joglekar began preparing a paper for submission to major journals.

  This was a new experience for Jake, and it excited him. He was very driven to understand what the correct format was for a research paper like this one and to get it right. I didn’t fully understand why he was so charged up until I realized that the paper was a way for him to communicate with other scientists and maybe even foster a conversation with them. Once more, Jake was learning a new language, one that would finally allow him to talk about all the things he loved so much.

  The paper, “Origin of Maximal Symmetry Breaking in Even PT-Symmetric Lattices,” was accepted for publication in the physics journal Physical Review A. (And no, I can’t tell you what that title means.) Jake’s name would be on the paper with Dr. Joglekar’s, an uncommon honor for any student, much less an undergraduate, much less one as young as Jake.

  The afternoon before Jake was to present his research, he came in from playing in the yard. My day wasn’t going so well, and he knew it. With a smile, he handed me a bouquet of thirty-eight four-leaf clovers. I took the daycare kids out to search for more, thinking he might have stumbled on a patch of them. But we were out there for the better part of an hour, and we found only three.

  It made me laugh. Sometimes being with Jake is like watching someone walk on water without knowing they’re doing anything the least bit amazing. It may sound corny, but it’s an honor to be his mother, to have an inside track on what he sees and thinks about and on how his extraordinary mind works. The true wonder for me is that my autistic son knows how to cheer me up with a bouquet of clovers only he can find.

  People often ask about Jake’s future. So far, we’re making it up as we go along. I do believe that he will make a significant scientific contribution to the world, mostly because that’s what he says he wants to do, and I’ve never seen Jake abandon a goal. He’s spent most of his life trying to understand the governing equations behind the universe.

  I was relieved to learn from Dr. Ruthsatz that child prodigies do not burn out quickly, as the myth would have it. She’s been working with prodigies for fourteen years, and every one of them has gone on to succeed in his or her field. Although he has the makings of a good businessman, Jake seems to have inherited the family-wide lack of interest in money as a motivation. He’s completely uninterested, for example, when people from Silicon Valley come calling. He’s more compelled to explain to others how the world works. Ultimately, Jake wants to help people by finding solutions to practical, real-world problems. In that way, he reminds me of Grandpa John.

  At the end of the summer, Jake presented his research. People thronged around him, asking questions. Business leaders from the community came over to shake his hand. As we stood and watched our son, Mike grabbed my hand in his own. I looked down at our intertwined fingers and couldn’t help remembering how tightly I’d held on to him during that first, devastating evaluation with Stephanie Westcott, the day Jake was diagnosed with autism. We’d come a long, long way from that day.

  Jake posed for group photographs with the other researchers and their professors. 60 Minutes was there filming. To cap the whole thing off, there was a ceremony in a soaring marble and glass room in the IUPUI Campus Center. But I had a surprise up my sleeve for Jake. We were going to counter all this sophistication with some good old Indiana fun.

  One night earlier in the summer, Narnie had come over while we were watching the movie Talladega Nights, a favorite in our house. In the movie, race car driver Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrell, so you can only imagine) gets physically thrown out of an Applebee’s. Watching the scene reminded me how Heather, my daycare assistant, had told Jake that he was going to win a big award someday and when he did, I was going to cheer so loud I’d get us all kicked out of a restaurant. As I was telling this story to Narnie, the two of us looked at each other, and a lightbulb went off.

  It was perfect. A regular kid doesn’t toast a success—I don’t care how illustrious it is—with champagne at a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths. A regular kid high-fives his friends and eats as many hot wings as he can. So we were going to go out with our friends to have a good time, and if people wanted to toast Jake, they could raise their root beer floats.

  I drove by the Applebee’s near us and spoke with the manager. I told him the whole story, and we came up with a plan I felt sure would crack Jake up.

  While Mike and I were watching Jake present his research, Narnie subbed in for me at the daycare. On the side, she got Ethan and Wesley totally NASCARed up, Talladega-style. She covered them in temporary tattoos, and they made ripped-up T-shirts that read “Jake—you rock!” She even put do-rags on them.

  When we walked into Applebee’s with Jake, everyone was there, ready to celebrate Barnett-style. There were friends from Little Light, friends who’d been in the daycare when he was little, and all of his friends from elementary school. I wanted Jake to know that no matter how many conjectures he solved, there would always be a group of people who remembered what he looked like the day I dressed him and all the other daycare kids up like Santa’s reindeer.

  It was an amazing night. We set up the poster Jake had made to present his research, and he told us (in the most general terms) what he’d learned. He at
e a gigantic hamburger and had a sundae for dessert. We stayed late, because everyone had a story to tell about Jake.

  At the end of the night, all of us hooted and clapped and screamed our heads off in celebration of him, Ricky Bobby–style. And when it was time to get “kicked out,” the waitresses picked Jake up, put him on their shoulders, and carried him right out of that Applebee’s with a huge grin on his face.

  POSTSCRIPT

  “He can do anything he wants.”

  That’s what Jake’s physics professor Dr. Ross said when the Indianapolis Star reporter asked him what he thought Jacob would do with his talents. When I read those words, a chill went down my spine. This is how far we’ve come, from the special ed teachers who didn’t believe Jacob could ever learn to read, to a university physics professor who sees his unlimited potential. That’s the kind of ceiling I want my son’s teachers to be setting for him. More important, it’s the ceiling I want teachers and parents to set for every child, and for all of us to set for ourselves.

  I wrote this book because I believe Jake’s story is emblematic for all children. Though his gifts are unique, his story highlights the possibility we all have of realizing what is extraordinary in ourselves, and maybe even opens the door to the possibility that “genius” might not be all that rare. I’m not suggesting every autistic child is a prodigy, or every typical child, for that matter. But if you fuel a child’s innate spark, it will always point the way to far greater heights than you could ever have imagined.

  It’s hard to trust your child to find his or her own path, especially when we’re told every day by professionals that children must fit into rigid boxes. We all want to give our kids the best opportunities we can, which is why it feels like such a disservice if we don’t push them in the “right” direction. Celebrating your children’s passions rather than redirecting them, especially when those passions don’t line up neatly with a checklist for future success, can feel like jumping off a cliff. It certainly did for me. But that leap of faith is necessary if your kids are going to fly.