But Jamie was emphatic. “He doesn’t want to know, Nuala.”
Heavily disappointed, I had to concede. Then one of the pups wandered over to Dale’s chair and tried valiantly to clamber up onto it. Sheena rewarded the little chap’s efforts with a helpful push, whereupon the pup turned around and snuggled in beside Dale.
“Look at that,” I told Jamie and Val, heartened. Dale was still engrossed in the video, but he was now also gently stroking the pup’s back—though he hadn’t so much as glanced at it.
Jamie replied, “He may be all right with him here, but lots of kids with autism are terrified of dogs.”
“Does he look terrified to you?” I countered. “He needs company, Jamie, I know he does.”
Sheena unwittingly broke into Dale’s world by standing in front of the TV to speak to our son. “Have you got a new friend there, Dale? This little fellow needs a name. Can you think of a name for him, Dale?”
Dale simply leaned around her to see the TV, and at that very moment his favorite engine appeared on the screen. “Henry, Henry,” Dale cried and excitedly pointed with delight to the screen.
“Henry?” said Sheena, surprised, mistakenly thinking he’d understood the question.
“He doesn’t understand,” explained Jamie.
“But why not?” I inquired. “It’s a subject he knows and a name he loves.”
Sheena observed, “Well, if he loves Henry the dog as much as Henry the train, we’ll have no problems there!”
“Henry?” repeated Jamie, before muttering, “The poor thing’s doomed from the start.”
So it was that this little pup was named after a cartoon engine, and with Jamie conceding defeat, at long last we had a new addition to our family, although not the one we’d planned or hoped for.
After the video had ended, in order to confirm that the pup was indeed to be Dale’s dog, Val lifted up a floppy ear and wrote a big H in black felt tip pen, much to the delight of Dale, who found this hilarious. While Jamie wrote out the check, I asked Val if she’d be prepared to take Henry back if his welfare started to suffer at Dale’s hands, and she confirmed she would.
Much as I would have loved to, we couldn’t take the pup right away. We needed time to prepare Dale for this big change in his life. Val was happy to look after Henry for another two weeks while we set about trying to help Dale understand what was about to happen.
I involved Dale throughout this whole process, taking him on a few shopping trips to buy all we would need for our dog, and then I put our purchases in a large black trash bag. Jamie made a very professional countdown calendar, showing a picture of a specific dog item for each day, and Dale would tick off the appropriate item on a daily basis to give him a concept of time going by. I would then put that item in the dog bed that now occupied a corner of our lounge. I involved Dale as much as possible during the shopping process, so he chose, for example, the color of Henry’s bed, a special quacking duck chew toy, and a small blue collar. We were really happy during this process, and I remember it felt as though we were preparing for the arrival of a new baby.
Jamie also spent time with Dale, using facial expressions to show how the dog would be feeling—happy, angry, sad, and so forth. He drew simple line drawings of a dog’s face to illustrate each expression, though Dale seemed to prefer his dad’s own physical attempts to replicate these. He found Jamie’s impression of a happy dog, involving bright eyes, panting, and a waggy tail, particularly entertaining.
We used a toy cuddly puppy on whose ear I had written a similar H to the puppy’s to reinforce our efforts, and I also drew basic pictures of the house, showing Mummy, Daddy, and Dale, and then adding in the dog to illustrate that he would be joining the family. Dale was used to this type of visual explanation, and although he never responded, I could tell by the interest in his face that he seemed to be taking some of it in. How much or little I couldn’t know, but it was always worth a try.
The night before we were due to collect Henry, a puppy photo that had been on Dale’s bedside cabinet was put on top of all the other paraphernalia in the dog bed, to reiterate to Dale that his dog would be coming home the next day.
We arrived at Val’s, and as before, Dale went through the door without saying a word, but he was at least in a calm, good mood. He stayed close by my side as Val left us in the lounge to go and get young Henry.
When she came back with our pup, Jamie sat reading a newspaper, oblivious. Val told me, “You’d better take him, Nuala, he’s a big lump now,” and passed Henry over to me. He had indeed grown in the two weeks since we had seen him. As his two big front paws rested on my shoulder, with Dale contentedly stroking his back, I hugged him to me, nestling into his soft downy coat and then placing a kiss on the top of his head. He snuggled in, and as I felt the love coming from this little pup, I realized that here was someone who would let me love him back. Silent tears were now running down my face. I hadn’t been prepared for this, but I just couldn’t help it—it felt as though I had at last been handed my yearned-for second baby. Jamie gave me a small nod to show that he understood.
What neither of us knew then was that this beautiful little pup was to change all of our lives forever.
2
A Different Child
Jamie and I should perhaps have suspected from the dramatic fashion in which Dale entered this world that life with him was never destined to be straightforward. At 11:04 a.m. on June 13, 1988, because he was stuck in a breech position, Dale arrived, five weeks premature, screaming enthusiastically. Every mother knows that surge of relief and elation when their newborn is placed in their arms, but my stomach heaved with fear when I saw the state of his head. I couldn’t help it as my knowledge as a midwife haunted me.
The problem was “excessive molding.” I had seen it before in other babies, but the shape of my baby’s head was terrifyingly worse. It was quite flat at the back, it was severely elongated, and it virtually touched the tops of his shoulders, covered in bruises even on his face. Thankfully, all medical tests revealed there was no obvious damage. However, I couldn’t get rid of the deep feeling of unease within me that it would be a miracle if my baby got away from this trauma unscathed. Nevertheless, I concluded when we got home that I was just going to love and nurture him for the wonderful, little baby he was. Only time would tell.
At home it seemed we had the perfect baby. In many ways he was unique and so easy to care for. He was passive, placid, and would go to anyone, not missing me in the slightest. Many people would comment on how good he was, and I started to wonder whether Dale was unnaturally so. He rarely cried and would sleep through the entire night without a sound. I remember having to lift him for breastfeeding. The only indication that he was awake would be the sound of his tiny fingernails scratching the sides of the vinyl of his crib.
Nothing seemed to faze him. I will never forget the day when I left Jamie in charge so I could go shopping. I came back to the sound of rock music blaring from our apartment and found Jamie in the kitchen, casually making coffee. “Where’s Dale?” I shouted, horrified by the deafening volume.
“In the lounge. He’s really into Whitesnake.”
I hurried in to rescue my son and found him calmly bouncing in his little baby chair, quite oblivious to the racket. Only when I turned down the music and lifted him up did he cry, distressed at being disturbed. Jamie thought it was good that Dale didn’t mind the music, but the experience left me chilled.
On the second routine visit from the nurse, I expressed my feelings of doubt about Dale’s welfare. She thought it unusual to hear a mother complaining that her baby was “too good” and was reassuring, with the words, “Just enjoy that you have such a happy and contented baby.” In a way, I felt she was right, although on some deeper level, my lingering sense of unease about how different a baby Dale was than any other I had ever known continued to trouble me.
Dale remained undemanding and at one with everyone and everything around him. I thought it stra
nge he would only smile at random. To get him to smile, we would have to go over the top, bouncing him or making loud silly noises. Even then he seemed to be smiling only to himself. Dale’s eye contact also seemed a little “out of sync.” Many a time it heartened me when he burbled or laughed joyfully at something, even though we couldn’t figure out what amused him so.
Like any new mum, and with my added knowledge of child development, Dale received all the usual stimulation that a new baby needed to help him thrive. In his crib were some toys to pull, and his blanket had a sheep and train theme, with a matching mobile that played “Baa-Baa Black Sheep,” which I would frequently sing to him. Unknown to me then, this simple blanket was to hold a very special place in our lives in the years to follow.
During the day, I would take Dale in his bouncy chair from room to room as I did the housework, talking to him all the while to try and gain his attention. His chair had giant, colorful beads that he would sometimes casually play with, but mostly he was content to gaze into space. Even when I attached dangling Disney characters to his chair, his play remained the same. He would only have a fleeting interest in them, generally hitting the toys by accident rather than playing with them as other babies would do.
I found that Dale was addicted to motion, as he would only fall sleep in his cradle as long as it was moving. My mum could also get him to sleep even after he had been screaming at full fury by swaying him to and fro as she sang the same lines of a song over and over.
Dale being an only child, I seized an opportunity to try and help his development even more. I joined a local breastfeeding support group, as it was good for me to see other mothers. It also gave Dale some experience mixing with other babies. It was reassuring for me to observe that by sitting up at six months, Dale was holding his own with them. Although this was good to see, this development lost its significance as I observed how different he remained from other children his own age. The gap between Dale and them became increasingly enormous as time went by. This was very noticeable as Dale tried to play with even the most basic toys. All toys were constantly put in his mouth, and no matter how we tried to teach him how a particular toy worked, it would eventually be chewed to death.
Dale was perfectly happy with the same few toys and could sit for hours. To try to encourage even the simplest play, I would give him real pots and pans with some metal spoons. Still I noticed he had no symbolic or imaginative play, as he wouldn’t bang the pot like a drum or use a spoon to stir around the pot. Dale would happily stay in this mode for hours if you let him and didn’t notice anyone else’s presence. To gain his attention, you would have to shout, clap, or simply pick him up, to which he would respond with wails of tears. He didn’t lift up his arms indicating he wanted to say, “Pick me up” or point to anything of interest like a bird in the sky like other babies.
I tried every technique I knew to get him to say words, spending hours rotating toys and playing with him at a most basic level. Despite all our continual efforts, that crucial “ma-ma” or “da-da” never came. Dale began to crawl at eleven months, but I remember him only crawling away from us. At the age of fourteen months, Dale suddenly found his feet. There was no in-between stage; one day he was crawling, the next he was literally up and running. I informed the medical professionals that he had developed a strange, tiptoe gait when walking, but they remained unconcerned. Now that Dale was walking, however, new and more challenging problems surfaced. Our enthusiastic efforts to produce his first word were futile, and he seemed to have no comprehension whatsoever of even the simplest language. To keep him safe, I tried to teach him to understand the two most basic and useful words in the English language: yes and no. He finally learned to love the concept of yes as it brought all good things his way. No was a different story. Whatever I tried, he simply refused to register or respond to a word that was going to prevent him doing or getting what he wanted, even if doing so was dangerous to himself or others around him.
I remember a time at the breastfeeding group when a young mum was sitting with her baby beside her in a car seat. I watched with delight as Dale toddled over to the baby and sat next to her. He seemed intrigued as he studied her, carefully touching her tiny hands…and then he whacked her forcefully in the face with a toy car. The poor little thing screamed, but thankfully it was quickly established that no real damage had been done.
The mother herself was very understanding, reassuring me that Dale was young and didn’t realize what he had done. But, perhaps because of my knowledge of his other anomalies, I was devastated; it felt as though I had hurt the baby myself. This wasn’t helped by the fact that not all of the mums were as understanding. My guilt, as well as a deep fear that I could not prevent a recurrence of this type of incident, was such that I never returned to the group.
Within a few weeks, Dale’s limitless supply of energy had become one of our biggest challenges. This was the time when the Chariots of Fire routine began. He would run constantly, both in the house and outside, but not at all like any other energetic youngster. His running was repetitive, almost ritualistic, and without purpose. He would charge across the room, bounce himself off the wall to gain momentum, and race back again—droning continuously, sometimes in a happy tone, sometimes anxious. This activity would go on for hours, and he never tired. He did this so often that the plaster on the walls started to bulge and separate where he bounced off them.
He could be out in torrential rain, soaked through to the skin if you let him, but still keep running relentlessly. He had an unusual tolerance to cold or rain and would run outside in his pajamas given half a chance. If anyone tried to stop him, he would respond with a tantrum so extreme that nothing we said or did would get through to him.
His mobility produced another strange “talent” in that he was an incredible climber. That is, if you removed an object like scissors from him and he saw where you placed them, he would be able to negotiate any obstacles to enable him to retrieve them. He had no sense of danger, but he knew how to use kitchen drawers as ladders if he wanted to climb up to sit on the stove. I remember Dale had many bizarre talents, as he could spin around on the same spot for hours, like a skater on ice, which he did so often we called it his circus-spinning trick.
Mealtimes were another challenge. Dale was rarely hungry and in order to get him to eat at all, I tried to arrange the food in the shape of cars or Mickey Mouse or serve it on novelty plates. Sometimes feeding him this way worked, but even then more food would end up being thrown all over the floor and Dale’s clothing rather than actually being eaten. What’s more, he was a nutritionist’s nightmare, rejecting everything except sausages, french fries, chicken nuggets, and pizza. Jamie and I tried to follow a healthy diet ourselves, but Dale was having none of that. There wasn’t an approach or piece of advice I hadn’t followed to encourage him to eat, but none worked. If I introduced so much as a single pea or slice of carrot, he would protest by vomiting at will. More worryingly, he would sometimes choose to regurgitate food simply if things were not going his way. He also would only refuel himself like a car running out of gas about twice a day. My mum got him to drink liquid when he learned to like milky tea without sugar, and to this day Dale has never refused the offer of a cup of tea.
By the time Dale was about two and now was a little older, I felt he should be around other children. I found the local mother and toddler group at Peat Road, about a mile away from our apartment. While somewhat nervous about how Dale would react, that first morning I was relieved to see a friendly face; Anne, a nursing colleague, and her young son seemed pleased to see us too.
I let Dale explore the toys and did my best to familiarize him with a couple of the other children. I took my eye off him for a moment to talk to Anne and turned back just in time to see him push a little kid to the ground so he could reach a toy fire engine.
“Dale, no!” I cried, but he was oblivious. Before I could get to him, he had pushed the toy into another child’s face, just as he had all t
hose months ago at the breastfeeding group. I spent the rest of the visit glued to his side, desperately trying to help him engage safely and appropriately with any child who was brave enough to go near him. It was impossible; if he wasn’t having a screaming fit due to me constantly saying no to him, another child would be screaming because Dale had hurt him or snatched a toy from his grasp. Anne courageously tried to take over, to let me sit and have a cup of tea, but Dale threw himself on the floor in noisy protest.
Seeing my embarrassment and despair, Anne and the other mums were generous enough to attribute Dale’s behavior to the fact that it was his first day and a new environment. I was nonetheless acutely disturbed by how little Dale had understood and the extraordinary level of vigilance required by me to ensure that he and the other children survived the session unscathed.
I persevered in attending the group, but my valiant efforts to teach Dale to try to interact at the simplest level with the other children proved futile. I became increasingly used to comments from the other mums such as, “I think you must be spoiling him,” or “He doesn’t seem to understand that what he’s doing is wrong,” or, most helpful of all, “Why don’t you spank him?” I grew adept at politely deflecting such interventions.
After the toddler group, as Dale clearly didn’t want his play session to end, I would take him to the Wellpark, a large park around the corner from our apartment. My wonderful parents, Dale’s Granny Madge and Granda George, would also spend many hours there with him on the days when I was working. I quickly came to understand how exhausting they found it.
Dale’s behavior in the park mirrored that of the play group, with the added disadvantage of the potential to bolt across the acres of parkland at his disposal. He would not let us hold his hand and would throw himself on the ground in fury if we tried, so Jamie and I, together with Mum and Dad, had developed the “three yard rule,” whereby one of us was always within three yards of Dale, ready to catch him if he decided to take off.
A Friend Like Henry Page 2
